Our little local FCC (Families With Children From China) group is flourishing.  We managed to get enough money from our two garage sales to sponsor a child for cleft palate surgery through Love Without Boundaries.  Our little email list is growing, and people are chatting.  We've had some fun picnics and gatherings.

Today was the eighth full moon since the beginning of the Chinese year.  This is the date of the Autumn Moon Festival, a very important holiday for the Chinese, akin, in many ways, to our American Thanksgiving.  So we all got together for a roughly organized "do", and I have to say, it was grand fun.

Someone made homemade dumplings--which were awesome.  Homemade egg rolls, homemade fried stuffed wonton.  Someone else made two kinds of mooncakes--yum!  Not traditional--no lotus seed paste--but one set had dates and nuts and coconut and almond paste; the other set had blueberry jam as the filling.  Most of the kids nibbled on them, but were kind of, "Eh."  I, on the other hand, had three.

Then we gathered all the kids, and the fun and games began.

First, I told the story of Chang-Er/Chang-E/O-Chang, the beautiful Moon Lady.  I had a leg up on this, because, when we were at China Heritage Camp and OmegaDad and I had to volunteer, my stint was telling the Same.  Story.  Over.  And.  Over.  Again...to various troops of kids.  I had snagged one set of the puppet drawings, so we had those to copy and hand out to the kids.

Then we played "Pin The Tail On the Bunny in the Moon".  (The Empress of the Universe, taking pity on Chang-Er for her lonely imprisonment on the moon, sent her a rabbit to keep her company, and use a mortar and pestle to concoct all sorts of potions for her.)  The kids--from age 20 months to age, oh, 11--had a ball.  OmegaDad had cobbled together a big poster of a pink bunny on the moon, using a moon picture from NASA and a clip-art bunny from M$ Word.  We made little pink paper cloud cutouts for each kid to write their name and try to "pin" (okay, tape) to the bunny.

Then we handed out goodie boxes, with crayons, stickers, paper ribbon dance ribbons, little fans, and little Chinese drums.

Alas, the Omega Family had to ditch the celebration fairly early (8:30), because we recognized the oh-so-familiar signs of the dotter getting tired and cranky.  But, as we left, we were graced with the most beautiful, brilliant, full moon sparkling overhead--a delightful gift, as it has been cloudy and rainy all day.

Happy Moon Festival to all!

Technorati: Moon Festival, Chang-Er, Moon Lady, mooncakes