Chinese Autumn Moon Festival

The Autumn Moon Festival is going on in China right now. This is when the Chinese celebrate the bringing in of the harvest and the brightest full moon of the year. It's sorta like our Thanksgiving here in America. Families gather together and lots of good food is in abundance. They prepare for it by cleaning their homes very well and hanging "moon-like" paper decorations near their front doors. They also enjoy a a delicacy called Moon cake. Wetried these last year...special ordered them from a bakery in New York. They were yucky...not what we are accustomed to. Definitely an acquired taste.

So this year I decided to forego the special order and create our own version of a moon cake. I know I could have just bought a couple of moon pies and some RC cola and been done with it but i am trying to establish a tradition, here. (By the way...for those of you who have NOT caught on yet, we have a Chinese child....thus the Chinese traditions and holidays.) I wasn't real impressed with our moon pie and will try another recipe next year but we DID go out and view the moon. It WAS very bright. (My sorry pictures do not do it justice) Did you know the Chinese children are taught about the rabbit in the moon...NOT the man we teach our American kids about? We did indeed see a rabbit last night...neat how a different culture can stir things up a bit.

So as we were headed back inside after our lunar viewing, MR said she sure was glad we have LE because she's lots of fun AND because we get to learn about "all this Chinese stuff". Nice.

I spent a few quiet moments looking at that moon last night and reflected on the fact that their is a woman on the other side of the world wondering if her daughter is staring at the same moon she is...well...she was. A beautiful, funny, smart, healthy little girl was staring at that moon last night and saying"moooooooon" in her sweet little voice and one day I will tell her of the other mother that also loves her who sees the same moon.