Before xin nien dao

When I was young, we had the yearly spring cleaning of our home (normally in Dec) in preparation for the cny. It was quite a mighty heavy task, as all the things, chairs, tables, tv, cabinets, EVERYTHING! go out into the car porch and we would scrub the whole house from ceiling to the floor.

Dad would find those big leaves (don't know what it's called) and tie them up at the tip of a long pole to clean the ceilings and corners. I do believe these leaves leave some smell behind as I find that the cobwebs take longer time to form. The decorations on the big iconic shelf hanging in the living room facing the main entrance would be taken down only this once a year, and washed thoroughly, giving them a clean sparkle again.

From top to bottom, the last to be cleaned would be the floor and this is the part that my brothers and I love most. We would hold a rag both ends on each hand, then on all fours, whee~ we would be sprint from one end to another. Sometimes we have race among ourselves as well. In the end, all of us would be wet from top to toe and laughing silly, having great fun! This was what we looked forward to when my parents declare the day for the annual spring cleaning.

My mom don't pray to any God or deity so other than getting some new clothes for us and making sure the fridge is stock for reunion dinner and the days that follow, not much fuss was quite needed.

When we were bigger, we would decorate the house up with angpows or folded origami. And that would be our cny preparation every year which changed altogether after I was married.

Now that I have my own family, what do we do in preparation for cny? Seeing others busy stocking up food in the fridge, buying new year goodies, cleaning up the home, decorating up the home, some even repainting their home, I do none of all the above. Jeez! Is something wrong? The days are just normal ordinary passing days, without the mood for cny actually, other than listening to the same old traditional loud noisy new year songs over the radio and in the malls.

Coming this cny, I just received a call from CY, my 2nd bro, that he and his family will be back after all! yoohoo! It's been a long while since we had gathered together, all 16 of us. Hearing the happy and excited voices of my dad and mom over the phone, I believe all the effort from the guys to come back home just for the reunion dinner and cny celebrations are all worth it. It's really been a long while...

On the other hand, at my inlaws', it will be rather quieter this year. My sis-in-law would be welcoming the year of the tiger in US while my bro-in-law is going to his inlaw's home for the first time for reunion dinner. They would be rushing home on chor 1. Guess someone's unhappy over this arrangement....

Well, I guess other than the new clothes and shoes, I would be shopping soon for some goodies as gifts for my relatives to "soong lai" as well. Not much time left, it's another 1 weekend and we would be all jamming the highway for the balik kampung routine. Xin nian lai lerr...