Our residents here at Holmwood Aged care love to celebrate. Events and observances great and small are celebrated and enjoyed from Christmas, Easter, St Patrick’s Day to Mother’s Day and Father’s days.
fairly recent addition to our social calendar in the past few years is Chinese New Year. We have been having a cracker of a time celebrating Chinese culture, the lunar new year and of course – Chinese Food.
Red was the colour of the day. The symbol represents luck, happiness and joy in Chinese culture. Our residents each made red paper lanterns that were hung all over the ceiling to bring us luck as 2018 is going to be a big year for Holmwood Aged Care.
2018 is the year of the dog in the Chinese zodiac. Therefore, we made red dog face masks to wear as we sat at a table with a red table cloth and red cups to enjoy our Yum Cha themed banquet. Residents ate spring rolls, mini steamed dim sims, money bags, Chinese samosas and ‘Nian Gao’ (or Chinese New Year Cake) whilst we learnt about each of our residents Chinese Zodiac signs. Only one of our residents was born in a year of the dog. They all had a lot of fun laughing as staff read each other’s horoscopes and outlined some strange similarities to their personalities!
Of course, what Chinese New Year feast would be complete without fortune cookies. These were read aloud with much interest and contemplation.
Our lifestyle staff wanted to finish off the day with some Chinese fireworks… but management wouldn’t allow it. Instead we had a calligraphy lesson and painted each of the residents name in ink on red cards to adorn the walls.
Happy Lunar New Year. Or 恭禧發財 Gong Xi Fa Cai.