Ushering in a new year

Yesterday commenced Chinese New Year, which makes me reminisce about past new years as a kiddo. We used to reunionize with all our relatives, eat a ton, dress up in new clothes, exchange red envelopes, and make merry. Lunar New Years as a child were noisy, festive hullaballoos that I look back at fondly. Fast forward to the present, and I've done a pretty poor job at exposing Serene to her culture. I'm Chinese and Alex is half Chinese/half Vietnamese, so Serene is 3/4 Chinese and 1/4 Vietnamese. Alex and I both suck at speaking Chinese and/or Vietnamese, so there is hardly any chance of Serene growing up bilingual. Her only opportunity of hearing the languages consistently is via her grandparents. I spoke Cantonese growing up and went to Chinese school to learn how to write and speak in Mandarin, but all of that is buried deep in my memory somewhere. I can hardly speak conversational Cantonese now and can understand Mandarin only a tiny bit. I now wish I had used it more often. Nevertheless, we're going to try to make Chinese New Year special for our kid(s). Serene wore a couple of traditional style garments for the occasion this year and we went to visit some family, eat dim sum, and usher in the new year. I also used to pass out red envelopes stuffed with traditional Chinese New Year strawberry candy to my classmates (and snuck in quarters to my best friends) in elementary school. I thought it would be fun for Serene to do the same with the kids in the children's program she attends at our church.