Chinese New Year traditions

Ever since our first stay in Singapore I've happily taken on the Chinese New Year tradition to decorate the house with spring branches like pussywillow or cherry blossom and hang little red and gold decorations from those branches. It's now 3 weeks until the Chinese New Year will occur, this year on Feb 8. According to the Chinese astrology this Year of the Fire Monkey will be a special one for me, as I will turn 60 and according to their calculations the constellations in the year one turns 6o are the same as when one was born, so one complete circle of life and new chances for the next cycle. We shall see :-)

I'm always glad to have something extra to cheer up the empty places at home after the Christmas decorations have been cleared and I've got my first bunch of pussywillow branches this weekend. The little golden charm you see here hanging from one of the branches is the Chinese character for luck 'fu'.  Another thing in Chinese traditions is to have things in pairs, doubling the luck, so I thought getting a shadow to double it would work well. I've turned it into a mono with a reddish tint because red is the colour for luck. Using it today for the celebratory 104th Mono Monday, originated 2 years ago by Paladian who is co-hosting with Osuzanna on this special MonoMonday. With huge thanks to them and here's hoping it will bring luck to the BlipFuture plans and we can have another MonoMonday year day for years to come.
If you haven't pledged yet and are able to do so, please do so now to help the BlipFuture plans !

Thanks very much for your kind comments and stars for the nuthatch yesterday, I'm starting to feel a little better but now the rest of the family is feeling unwell !