Does Your Family Have Any Unique Traditions?

Because my grandma is a conservative woman, my family still keeps some special customs of celebrating Chinese traditional festivals. Here are two examples about what we do on those days.

On the Dragon Boat Festival, we not only eat rice dumplings, but also we tie a bundle of Chinese banya branch with its leaves, calamus leaves, and mugwort leaves at the outside of main gate; moreover, we need to clip a piece of Chinese banya leaf with some mugwort leaves on our hair before noon to stay bad luck away from our home and every family members.

The other is crossing over a fire stove before the reunion dinner on the Chinese New Year’s Eve. Because my family maintains a close relationship with our relatives, they always come to our house to celebrate the holiday together. After praying the gods and our ancestors, all the big family members line up and cross over the stove that joss papers are burning inside. This movement is a symbol of driving away tempting fate from the previous year and welcoming a new start for everyone.

In conclusion, because these unique traditions represent my family background, and teach me how life values are, they are important factors that have made me the person I am now.