28 December 2025 · Samantha Lin
Designer · Mother of two
Getting Ready for Chinese New Year With Young Children
There's a version of Chinese New Year preparation that involves a spotless flat, new clothes for everybody, and a serene reunion dinner. I haven't had that version since 2023 and I don't expect to have it again for some years.
What I have instead is a shorter list that I complete, and a fortnight that everybody survives. This is that list.
The two weeks before
The spring clean is the part that has to change most, because the traditional version assumes a flat you can take apart and put back together in a day.
In a four-room flat with a one-year-old in it, taking a room apart means living in the wreckage of that room until it's done, so I do it in twenty-minute pieces across a fortnight and I do it in the order that counts. One drawer, one shelf, one cupboard. It's far less satisfying and it's the only version that finishes.
- Clean before the fifteen days, and stop on New Year's Day itself, which is the tradition and is also a very good excuse.
- Do the low surfaces last. Anything you clear at crawling height will be redistributed by a toddler within the hour, so leave it until the day before.
- Store the cleaning products properly the moment you're finished with them, and don't leave a bottle of anything on the floor while you answer the door. This is the fortnight when the flat is fullest of things that are usually put away.
- Buy the new clothes early and in the next size up. Everything sells out, and a child who has grown between purchase and wearing is a very predictable annoyance.
- Get the red packets ready in a single place, and count them twice. You'll need more than you think and you'll be asked for one at a moment when your hands are full.
- Order the food you're ordering in early January. Every year I think I have time and every year I don't.
The food side of it
Surviving reunion dinner
The evening itself is long, loud, late, and entirely unlike a small child's usual day, which is a lot to ask of somebody who's normally asleep by seven.
The thing that changed ours completely was giving up on the idea that he would eat at the table with everybody. He eats at half past five, at home, properly, before we go. Then dinner is something he attends, and if he manages two spoons of rice at nine o'clock that's a bonus.
- Feed him beforehand. Everything else follows from this one.
- Bring the whole sleep kit, sleep sack, muslin, whatever he settles with, and ask early which room you can use, before somebody puts their handbags on the bed.
- Expect a late night and plan the next morning around it. Nobody in our house does anything before ten on the first day.
- Take a bag you can find things in without unpacking it, because you'll be doing that in a corridor.
- Agree with your partner in advance who's on duty for the first half and who's on for the second. This one sounds trivial and it prevents most of the arguments.
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The visiting is where families come unstuck, because the invitations are sincere, the obligations are real, and a small child has a fixed number of good hours in a day.
Two houses in one day is the ceiling in our family. Three is possible and somebody pays for it, usually at bedtime, usually for two nights afterwards. Going in the morning is far better than going in the afternoon, because a nap missed at one o'clock ruins the rest of the day and a nap taken in the car on the way home doesn't.
Declining an invitation is allowed. The first year I said yes to everything and we spent the whole of February recovering. Or maybe it was March. It felt like both. Now I decide at the start of the fortnight which visits count, and I tell the rest the reason. Nobody has ever taken offence at "he naps at one and we'd be no use to you at all".
What a toddler can do
A three-year-old can do a surprising amount of this, and being given a real job makes the entire fortnight easier for everybody.
- Wiping surfaces with a damp cloth, which Richard considers a treat and which I'm not going to interrupt.
- Sorting oranges into a basket, and counting them in Mandarin if you're that way inclined.
- Stacking red packets, which is handy and buys you ten minutes.
- Hanging decorations at his own height, in his own arrangement, which will be crooked and should stay crooked.
- Practising the greetings. This is the one that pays you back, because it's what everybody will ask him to do and being ready makes him proud and never shy.
- Choosing his own outfit from two you've already approved, which removes an argument you would otherwise have on the morning.
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What to drop
Every year I let go of a little more and every year it's better. This is the current list. The perfect house, first. Guests are looking at your children, and the one who notices your skirting boards was going to find something regardless. Then the full circuit, which I've already said. Then homemade anything, unless making it is the part you enjoy. Nobody at any gathering I've attended has ever asked whether the pineapple tarts were bought.
The photographs, last. I spent one entire New Year trying to get all four of us facing the same direction in matching red, and I have exactly one usable frame from that year and no memory of the day. Now I take fewer and I take them early, before anybody is tired, and I put the phone away.
This guide is general information, written to help you understand a topic and ask better questions. It is not medical advice and does not replace your own doctor, midwife or paediatrician. Anything that worries you about your baby belongs with them.