Tet Holiday

Tet Holiday is nearly coming on this Sunday. It is a big celebration of Vietnamese people for New Year which is based on the Lunar Calendar. It is so special that this year, 2010, Tet has also the same day with the Valentine Day. That is so sweet and meaningful for Vietnamese people to show and transfer their love and happiness to their friends, their family and their lover. Tet Holiday is really similar with Chinese New Year because our customs has many things in common. There are many special and interesting events on Tet Holiday. Vietnamese people are always happy and waiting for Tet Holiday to be celebrated. There are three important periods to celebrate: Tat Nien (before New Year’s Eve), Giao Thua (New Year’s Eve) and Tan Nien (New Year).

Before Tet Holiday, to prepare for welcoming the New Year, we have a lot of things to do such as buying flowers, cooking special traditional food and cleaning the house before New Year’s Eve coming. In every Vietnamese market you can see that it sells plenty of colorful things to decorate for the house, especially flowers and New Year trees. People are so crowded on the streets and excited to have a happy new year with their family. A lot of red slogans “Happy New Year” everywhere, the atmosphere of Tet makes people feel relax and forget about unlucky things during the past year. Tet is the time for family getting together, even though you are working or studying really far from your house. I have really missed Tet in Vietnam, since I came to America to study. Every times, Tet was coming, my mother often took me and my sisters to buy new clothes to dress up on the New Year so that we would be so beautiful and happy to welcome guesses or go around visiting our relatives and friends. Sometimes, my family went to my grandfather’s house and stayed there over night with our relatives to cook “Banh Chung” and “Banh Day” (sticky rice cakes with meat and bean) which are two significant traditional foods in the culture of Vietnam. At that time, we could gather and chat intimately with each other about our jobs and studies; for me it was really a happy and warm moment.

And then, when everything is ready for welcoming The New Year, New Year’s Eve is always the unforgettable time in the year. We display traditional foods and clean the house for the last time to sweeping out of unlucky things in the past year and welcome the fortune things will be arrived at our house. At that night, we either stay together to have New Year’s party or go out to countdown and see fireworks blowing up on the sky which signals for the New Year coming . It is such a miraculous moment in the year. For my family, after the moment of the past year has just passed, my parents will give us lucky money and bless us for the New Year with fortune and healthy life and to be good in our studies. It is always a traditional habit that my family will play cards with each other overnight, and my dad most likely is going to win me, that is really frustrated, but really happy and special with me. We had a lot of fun during that time.

The following day which is the first day of Vietnamese New Year, we just stay at home to welcome guesses and relatives to visit, and whoever is the first person step on your house will be considered as the one who will carry lucky things to your family. The second and the third day of Tet, people just go around to greeting each other and for us, the most special and happy thing is receiving lucky money in the red envelop from elderly people and listening to many best wishes. Furthermore, going to the temples is the custom; people always go there to make a wish for happiness, good health and prosperity. Playing game in the Vietnamese festival market is also really funny and traditional activity in the New Year time. I member we went there to take a try, and if we won a game, everyone looked so happy and satisfied because it is so tough. Those are all most traditional activities we usually do to in Tet Hoiday and It makes me miss my family a lot whenever I think about all of happy memories every New Year we had been through.

This year, Tet is coming again, even though I will not have a chance to celebrate Tet with my family and friends in Vietnam, I always hope they would have a happy and lucky New Year. And I hope I and my sister would also have a special celebration and valentine day in this Sunday. Missing all of them a lot.