Soft launching for Moms and Tots Store

At last, our website http://www.momsntots.com.my/ is uploaded and officially open for business. You are cordially invited to visit our homepage. We appreciate your comments and support. I need to give credit to my SIL aka my business partner, Alice for doing a wonderful job in creating our website from scratch without any trained knowledge in this field. We chose to launch our website on Mid-Autumn Festival Day as it signifies abundance harvest.

A simple feast - mostly children's favourites. My aunt served fried sweet potatoes instead of potatoes and it's yummy.

My family celebrated Mooncake Festival Day at my DH's aunt house together with my parents in law, SIL and family. We had simple feast - Hainanese Chicken Rice, fried foods, mooncakes, pomelos, boiled baby yams etc. It was a rainy day but fortunately it stopped around 9pm. We lit some lanterns after dinner and the kids went for a short walk carrying their lanterns. Along the way, we saw houses lighting lanterns and some having a family reunion party. It is very heart warming to see our Chinese tradition still being carry on after so many generations. I still remember vividly how I spent my childhood Mid-Autumn Festival. Early in the morning, my maternal granny would offered prayers to the God. I loved helping my granny to prepare the joss sticks and joss papers, foods and rice wine as offerings for the above. Later at night, my extended maternal family (my mom has 9 siblings) would gather to feast at the car porch (the dinning room could not accomodate the crowd). After dinner, we would snacked on pomelos, baby yams, mooncakes and 'buffulo horns' (water caltrope, a type of water chestnut resembling black buffalo horns). How time flies....

Nowadays, more and more youngsters and young families either celebrating diffirently or totally forgotten major Chinese festivities apart from Chinese New Year. Some prefer to go out for a feast in a restaurant, catch a movie, or concerts and public celebration. Personally, I find this modern way of celebrations a bit disturbing and compelling as it could spell disaster to our customs and culture. How are our next generation or generations ahead going to keep our traditions alive if their parents are taking it for granted? I guess this is the side effect of industrialisation and globalisation that more youths educated abroad find western culture more awesome and interesting. They remember and celebrate Christmas yet they are not Christians but couldn't stay home for family gathering on Mooncake Festival Day because their idol is having a concert!

Call me a conservative freak but I think my kind of celebration is ideal in promoting kinship and parent-child bonding in a special way. I want my children to grow up with fond memories of how they spent time with his parents especially during festive celebrations, just like how I remember my granny. In times, they will be able to share their childhood memorable moments with their kids and grandkids. To me, parents play a key role in preserving our traditions and culture through story telling, exhibitions visits and customary celebrations. You can always invite friends and their family over for dinner to make Mooncake Festival merrier and more meaningful to the children. Lastly, Happy Belated Mid-Autumn Festival!