The cutest guest

This year, one of my friends brought a very special guest a our Mid Autumn Moon celebration. Everyone adored the new addition, with one notable exception. Ginger the dog was less than impressed.

Meet Gus:

Isn't he the cutest little guy ever? Gus is 6 weeks old and was adopted by my friend the day before our party. She brought him along to meet everyone, Ginger included. We're hoping Ginger and Gus will eventually become good friends and playmates.

Right now, Ginger mostly finds the little guy annoying. She also isn't crazy about me petting Gus or showing him any attention. I am hers, and she wants him to know it! She ended up getting way too many treats (party food) from all of our friends to distract her from the little bastard show-stealing pup. Come to think of it, maybe that was her plan all along!


All in all, we had a good time at the party. A few guests canceled at the last minute, but the people that mattered were there. We had awesome food, awesome lights and decorations, a puppy to play with, and lots of gossiping and drinking outside under the full moon. Actually, we only got one glimpse of the moon, around midnight. It had been cloudy and threatening rain all day, so I was satisfied that it at least stayed dry for our party. When we finally did get our one glimpse of the moon, I snapped a picture:

Happy Mid Autumn everyone!




  

 

Party lights

This year, for our Mid Autumn Moon celebration, my friend Marla and I got crafty. I spent lots of time on the Internet looking for cheap ideas for party lights. The very best one I found was for homemade paper mache string lights. This idea comes from a lady named Reese Dixon and her wonderful website, found here http://www.reesedixon.com/ . You should all go check this woman out. She is an amazing blogger, crafter, and mother and she has the most wonderful ideas! Besides the string lights, look for the Dr Who family costumes she created....her small son, who uses a wheelchair, had the best costume ever. Any Dr Who fans reading should go see it pronto! And the rest of the website, too. Seriously good stuff!

Getting back to the string lights, they involve small balloons covered in paper mache which are later deflated, leaving behind a small globe that can be attached to regular strings of lights. Let me tell you...this was a learning experience. It took three tries to get the method down pat for making the globes. Our first attempt was a disaster. The second was a bit better, and we actually got a few globes we could use. Our third time was the charm. Good thing we started early!!! We ended up needing  30 globes in all since the LED string lights we used was long. I think they turned out great, though! What do you think?

Marla and I are crafting superstarz!

Sparkly! Shiny!



 

Besides the globe party lights, I strung lots of plain strings of white lights around our clothes line out back. We also had lanterns, candles, and tiki torches. Here are some more pictures of party lighting.

Silver dangly stars.

Mason jar lanterns.

Floating candles in the birdbath.

Tomorrow: third (and last) party post!

Let's start with FOOD!

This past Saturday night, for the second year in a row, I hosted a Mid Autumn Moon celebration for my best girlfriends. We had a lot of fun, and one of the best parts of this year's party was the awesome food everyone contributed! So to kick off a couple of posts describing the party, I thought I'd start with photos of the fabulous food we had!

Assembling cheeses, nuts, crackers.

Autumn fruit platter.

Bean dip work of art

Homemade spring rolls made by one friend's Laotian mother in law.
Thanks Mrs. P!!!

Pumpkin chocolate chip cake.

 

 

Pretty outdoor table loaded with goodies.

 

Cranberry Pomegranate Sangria and
homemade muscandine wine.
 

A toast to our one "sister" who couldn't make it.
Hi Meg! Missed you!!

 

 

 

Tomorrow: decorations!

 

 

 

Party plans!

It's only a week away: my second annual Mid Autumn Moon party! I am so excited, but I still have a lot to do to prepare. I'm also getting a bit nervous about it. There will be a couple of new faces this year, and I want my backyard to look magical (where the party is taking place) but I also need for the house to be in excellent shape. Right now my house is a pigsty! I've held off on several chores that would only get undone if I did them too early, and lots of the food will have to be purchased at the last minute. Today is my last day off work until the day before the party, so I will need to be super productive. And there will be lots to do each day both before and after work in the coming week.

Despite having a lot to do today, I would like to kick off a week of looking forward to the party here on my blog.  I'll try to post something each day about my plans/preparations so you can share in the fun! To start, here is a lovely little drink recipe I found that I am thinking of serving as the main alcoholic beverage (and it should pair well with the wines some of the guests are bringing):

Cranberry Pomegranate Sangria

This holiday punch, courtesy of  Deep South Dish   looks delicious and just right for autumn, with the pomegranate seeds and apple slices and cranberries. I've asked a couple of invited guests what they thought, and they all agree that it sounds delicious! What do you think?

Mid Autumn Moon party

For years now I have wanted to celebrate the Chinese mid autumn moon festival, after first reading about it on Waverly Fitzgerald's wonderful site of seasonal holiday lore, School of the Seasons. It is considered a women's festival in China, and more of a family tradition in other parts of Asia, but the main theme throughout is that people gather outside during the full moon closest to the autumn equinox and stay up late enjoying themselves while gazing at the moon. In China, it is considered the start of the yin part of the year, when the dark hours exceed the light. Women traditional gather for "moon viewing parties" and stay up late moon gazing, drinking tea and wine, and eating fruits and sweets that symbolize the moon: melons, pears, peaches, grapes and pomegranates. It is also traditional to give gifts of "moon cakes" in beautifully decorated tins to guests. They are round cakes (round to symbolize the full moon) filled with sweet bean pastes and often, a boiled egg in the center. They are special treats and Asian people I have known sometimes refer to this as the "mooncake" festival.

There are many versions of the legend about the Chinese moon goddess, Chang-o, but the basic story goes that this goddess had stolen the elixer of life from her husband, who rules the sun, and they live separately across the heavens now. Often there is a tale that a rabbit lives in the moon with the goddess, and mixes the elixer of life with a mortar and pestle. So rabbits with a mortar and pestle are also symbols for this festival.

I am fortunate in that I have three very good friends that are as interested in other cultures as I am. I decided to plan a small party for us at this full moon, and they were all happy and excited to come. Here are some of the decorations and festivities that ocurred on Sunday night, under the full moon:

This was the moon altar I built outside on our patio. The party took place outside, of course.

There were large platters of fruit. The fruit salad pictured above is held in a hollowed-out honeydew melon that I carved into a lotus shape.

Although I told the ladies not to bring anything, all three brought bottles of wine. There was even a gallon jug of homemade muscadine wine given by one friend's grandparents. Obviously, we were not going to have any lack of alcohol!

in the hammock, after lots of wine

I could not find authentic moon cakes in our town. That was a disappointment. One nice lady at our only asian market said that they used to carry them, but that no one ever bought them so they stopped. I didn't check until the last minute so I had no time to order any. This meant that I had to get creative.  I decided to go with the closest traditional sweet we have here in South Carolina. Check out my "down south" version:

I packaged them in homemade origami boxes I made out of stiff origami paper. These made me laugh out loud when I put them together!  I tied them closed with string and sent them home with the ladies as they were leaving. I hope they got a kick out of them too!!

All four of us had a wonderful time. We laughed, we drank, we stayed outside past midnight. We gazed at the moon (it was beautiful!) and enjoyed each others company.  I hadn't laughed that much in months!  We have decided that this will be a new annual tradition for us.

Happy Mid Autumn Moon, everyone!