Chinese New Year's Party

I saw this Groupon a few weeks ago for Chinese sky lanterns. Although I didn't buy the Groupon (I found a better deal on Amazon.com) it inspired me to plan a party. I have always liked entertaining but lately haven't done much of it since I don't like having people over to my small little hole in the wall apartment that I can't wait to get out of someday. I have been enjoying hosting parties outside of my house (like my IKEA dinner party and my pop up dinner party in the city). You get to host a party, be social, get away from the kids for an evening and you don't have to clean your house or have people over to your small space - perfect solution if you ask me.

The Chinese sky lanterns inspired me to plan a party using the sky lanterns and what perfect timing -  for Chinese New Years. We planned a dinner in Chinatown in San Fransisco. It was a challenge to find a restaurant that would take a large reservation on Chinese New Year's Eve.

We ended up going to Chef Hung's Restaurant. It is a hole in the wall Chinese restaurant with not the best service but it did accommodate our large party and did have really good food. Our original RSVP list included 11 couples (22 people) however, we had several cancellations at the last minute due to sickness and ended up with 14.










After our dinner we seperated into two groups - boys and girls, and headed out into Chinatown for a little scavenger hunt. We had a list of 15 things that we had to take pictures of before we met back up at the Chinatown mural on the corner of Sacramento and Grant. Each team ran in and out of stores taking pictures and of course the girls won. The prizes were little Budha's (gold, jade, and red ones).

After our game we headed over to the San Fransisco Pier off the Embarcadero to light our sky lanterns. It was a perfect night, not too cold or windy. We lite our lanterns and let them fly up over the water and above the bridge. It was tons of fun. We had crowds of people watching and taking pictures of us lighting our lanterns and sending them off.

For our party favors I made little bags with chopsticks, Chinese fans (for the girls) and personalized fortune cookies. It is year of the snake this year so I added a snake logo to all the goodies. It was a fun night. I'm glad I have friends who are willing to attend all my crazy little parties.