How to Plan a Lantern Festival Dinner

Lantern Festival marks the end of the two-week Chinese New Year festivities. Celebrated on the 15th day of the first lunar month, Lantern Festival rivals the full moon with displays of colorful lanterns and bright fireworks. This traditional time for honoring family members and young lovers is a great time to host a dinner party.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Consider the context. If you live in or near a Chinese community, you'll want to plan your dinner to allow time for guests to enjoy public Lantern Festival activities like lantern parades, lion and dragon dances and fireworks displays. If you aren't near such public festivities, you can arrange to make some parts of the celebration part of your own dinner party.

2. Invite your guests. Lantern Festival, like the rest of the Chinese New Year or Spring Festival, is primarily a family time, so invite relatives near and far to your Lantern Festival dinner, or choose to invite those friends who are like family to you. Because young people were customarily allowed to watch Lantern Festival parades unchaperoned, this holiday has become a kind of Chinese Valentine's Day. You might invite young family members or friends to bring their dates to your Lantern Festival dinner to honor this romantic tradition.

3. Plan your menu. You can have a sit-down dinner featuring traditional New Year's foods such as whole steamed fish, oysters in seaweed or Mongolian hotpot, or plan a buffet of sweet and savory snacks before or after viewing public parades and fireworks. No Lantern Festival meal is complete without the signature dish of the feast, sweet or savory filled dumplings made from sticky rice flour, rolled into round balls and served in red bean soup or sweet syrup. The dumplings, called "yuan xiao" or "tong yuan," symbolize family harmony and reconciliation.

4. Decorate with lanterns. Even if you aren't able to view or march in a public parade, you can light up your home with Chinese paper lanterns in the traditional round, red shape or all manner of fanciful designs. Order lanterns online from companies like Oriental Trading, or use your creativity to make your own. Traditionally, lanterns are hung indoors and out, and provide the major source of illumination for the evening.

5. Play riddle games. In China, people paste riddles on the lanterns outside their homes, and passersby try to guess them. You can find traditional Lantern Festival riddles online, or you can create your own riddles for your guests to solve.

6. Participate in traditional Lantern Festival festivities. Lead your guests on a lantern walk or go together to watch parades, dances and fireworks. You can find videos of Chinese New Year parades, dragon and lion dances and fireworks displays to add atmosphere if you don't live in a Chinese community. You might set off small, legal fireworks such as sparklers and poppers; according to legend, the lantern light and fireworks appease the Fire God and keep him from sending fire from heaven.

7. Send your guests into the New Year with sweetness. Offer a traditional eight-sided tray or box full of candied nuts and fruits. Give "lai see," small red envelopes full of coins or good wishes, to departing guests, along with tangerines or oranges that symbolize wealth and good luck. One Chinese tradition promises harmony to family members who gather at midnight on this last night of the New Year festival, under the brightest lantern, to eat pounded taro root.

Tips & Warnings

• Public Lantern Festival celebrations are rare outside of China and Taiwan, but communities with large Chinese populations—such as Auckland, New Zealand, and Southern California's San Gabriel Valley—have become known for lanterns, parades and fireworks displays.
• Lantern Festival dumplings are available in Chinese markets between the fourth and eighteenth days of the first lunar month. You can find recipes online for making your own. Experiment with fillings, from the traditional sweet bean paste, rose petals, walnuts and dried tangerine to the savory pork, crabmeat or vegetable fillings more popular in South China.
• You can find strings of patio lights designed to look like tiny Chinese lanterns, which can be used indoors (Lantern Festival falls during the chilly days of late winter) or to decorate your front porch or entryway.