Red Egg and Ginger Celebration for Henri’s 100 Days

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Last month, Henri turned 100 days old! We celebrate this milestone with something called a Red Egg and Ginger Party. What the heck is the significance of 100 days?? In East Asian cultures, when a baby lives past a certain number of days, it signifies that they will live to see their first birthday and beyond. Morbid? Sure, a little bit. But back in the “old days”, infant mortality rates within the first 100 days was very high. So, reaching 100 is an auspicious occasion and is to be celebrated in grand fashion!

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Steeped in Tradition

We are Vietnamese, so actually, the celebration of 100 days is a bit of a foreign concept for our family. This celebration is most significant in Korean culture. More recently, I’ve seen it become more popular in Chinese culture because it represents longevity and the wishes that baby will live for 100 years.

In Vietnamese culture, we celebrate when a baby turns one-month old. During the first month postpartum, baby and mom do not leave the house and visitors are limited to almost none. The main goal is to keep mom and baby warm, so bathing is not advised nor is anything that could expose mom to water such as washing dishes and laundry. Mom is also served foods that are considered warming to the uterus, such as anything containing ginger or garlic.

In ancient times, due to superstition and fear of evil spirits stealing baby away, baby was not even given a name or given new things to wear until after a full month had passed. I’m not sure if modern Vietnamese families still observe this tradition or not.

Obviously, times have changed. But keeping with traditions, a baby’s one-month birthday calls for a huge celebration that includes a 12-course banquet! In our case, I chose to do our kids’ Red Egg and Ginger Parties at 100 days instead of 30 because let’s be real…I wasn’t going to be in any position to get all done up and manage to stay up past 10pm while still looking fresh just 30 days after having a newborn. Kudos to the ladies who can pull this off! I had a unicorn of a postpartum with Lincoln and I still couldn’t imagine doing this.

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Planning in a Covid World

When Lincoln turned 100 days, we did the traditional 12-course banquet at a local restaurant. Some family members flew in from the west coast to celebrate with us, and that made it extra special. As Henri turned 100 days, we’re still in the midst of a covid-world and a semi-lockdown here in Alberta, Canada. As a result, our plans for his Red Egg and Ginger Party whittled down as the weeks passed and covid cases were heading in the wrong direction. We went from planning a large banquet at a restaurant, to hosting just immediate family at home, to where we ended up – special gift boxes to deliver to everyone’s doorstep!

I was secretly happy to be given an excuse to put these boxes together in lieu of organizing a big party. These boxes turned out so well and I am obsessed!

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What’s in the Box?!

Were you thinking Brad Pitt in ‘Se7en’ there? Haha! Ok, back on topic. Here is what I included in these boxes:

• Red dyed hard boiled eggs
• Pickled ginger
• 350 ml bottle of Hennessy
• Crispy skin roast pork
• Sugar cookies in the theme of the Year of the Rat
• Adorable photo announcement card of Henri in traditional red Vietnamese suit (called ‘ao dai’)

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Significance of Red Eggs and Ginger

No Red Egg and Ginger Party is complete with red eggs and ginger. Obviously.

Red eggs symbolize harmony and new life. They also represent healthy fertility. Red is a lucky colour in Asian culture and represents happiness and good fortune. Would you believe that these were dyed with nothing but yellow onion skins!? Whenever possible, I try to opt for natural methods to do things. So I was so happy to learn that dying eggs with onion skins was possible AND provides amazing results. I’ll put together a tutorial on how to do this later. Seeing the eggs turn out the way they did got me all giddy!

Ginger represents a family’s strong, deep roots. It’s also symbolic of providing restored health and warm fiery energy to the new mom. I purchased pink pickled ginger in a jar that’s generally eaten with sushi. It’s a great and tasty complement to the hardboiled eggs.

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The Other Items

Hennessey – no East Asian celebration is complete without a shot (or several shots) of Hennessey. It’s a non-starter. Must. Have. Hennessey. I’m so glad we found these adorable smaller sized bottles at the local liquor store. They fit perfectly in the boxes.

Roast Pork – generally presented at Chinese/Vietnamese weddings, a whole roasted pig is a sign of prosperity. Every important Chinese or Vietnamese occasion will have this dish. We ordered ours from a local Vietnamese butcher and they took care of prepping the pork for easy packing and eating.

Sugar Cookies – Henri was born in the Year of the Rat and I wanted to include a sweet treat in the box. I reached out once again to the oh-so-talented Pam at Sugar Shimmer with some design concepts and left her to it. I am so obsessed with her work! She has never failed to impress me with her artistic cookie talents. The Year of the Rat sugar cookies turned out absolutely beautifully! And they were delicious too.

Custom Photo Announcement Card – I had so much fun setting up and shooting photos of Henri for these cards. Once I got the photo I wanted, I ordered the cards from Minted. They have the CUTEST and chicest designs in my opinion! You won’t find the exact design for Henri’s cares on their site, but Minted designers are available via chat and can design anything you like!

Starting May 27 and running to June 1, Minted is holding their Memorial Day Sale! They’re offering 15% off wedding, 25% off save the dates, 15% off baby and kids, and 15% off grad stationary with the code MEMORIALDAY. Definitely take up this offer and get all your cute stationary needs for the year!

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Delivering the Boxes

I put these boxes together and while we didn’t have too many people to drop these off to, it still took us two days to complete the delivery! Ideally, we would drop and go and get it all done in an evening. But we now have two babies. Getting them packed up and out of the house is a whole song and dance.

Also, family always likes to catch up, especially since we haven’t seen ANYONE outside our immediate family members for a year! It was really lovely catching up a bit with everyone at each drop off, even though it was physically distanced. We’re looking forward to when restrictions can ease up and we can hug everyone and have some celebratory shots together for real!

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— Shop The Post —

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I hope these boxes have inspired you to think about something like these for your upcoming celebrations while the world is still in semi-lockdown. I’ve included links to all the products I used to put these together in my “Shop The Post” slider above!

Let me know in the comments below what types of celebration boxes you made or pin this post to your Pinterest board for inspo later! There’s no reason we can’t continue to celebrate life’s special moments and milestones. We just have to think about doing it a little differently.