2000 was a special year.
On New Year's Eve, all the adults and children in the family were on vacation at home. The two old men sat in front of the big window drinking tea. The fragrance of tea filled the house and spread to the yard, colliding with the taste of food, creating a particularly harmonious atmosphere.
"Old Cao, to be honest, when we celebrated the New Year in Northeast China 25 years ago, I never thought I would be where I am today."
"Who says it isn't? After today, we will have lived for two centuries. You have a wonderful granddaughter, and I have a wonderful granddaughter-in-law."
Grandpa Shen proudly picked up the tea bowl on the table and said, “Or else it would be said that your Cao boy is lucky.”
The two old men smiled at each other, and everything was said without words.
With dozens of people celebrating the New Year together, one or two tables definitely cannot accommodate them all. Fortunately, the house is big enough, and large and small tables can be placed together. The three main rooms that are connected can accommodate all these people.
Many dishes were prepared a week before the New Year, including fried fish, fried meatballs, fried pork slices, and steamed buns. These were all prepared in advance by Shen Ma and a few others. According to the children who were on vacation at home, the food smelled so delicious during those days that they were in a daze. Even their dreams were filled with the smell of fried food when they went to bed at night and woke up in the morning.
There was a table full of delicious food: stewed chicken with hazel mushrooms, sweet and sour pork ribs, four-happiness meatballs, roast duck, sweet and sour pork, steamed pork with pickled mustard greens, stir-fried lettuce, Chinese cabbage, etc. The twins are now teenagers. After entering junior high school, they gradually became like older brothers. They took their younger brothers and sisters to sit at the children's table and took care of them.
"This table of delicious food is all made by our grandma and aunt. It's a pity that Sister Xixi and the others are not here. I don't know if I can see my eldest nephew on the second day of the Lunar New Year."
Two years after graduating from graduate school, Shen Zixi was introduced by her family to marry a captain of the Civil Aviation Administration, who was three years older than her. The two just had a child this year. Regardless of whether it is a child of the Shen family's ancestry, the first child of this generation is still a boy.
"Brother-in-law shouldn't be on duty on the second day of the Lunar New Year. He will definitely be back."
The adults were drinking wine at the table, and the children were drinking drinks at the table. The lively atmosphere of the New Year affected everyone.
The children, who were usually on a controlled diet, were like mice falling into an oil tank.
The second child of Peng Zhe's family is four years old this year. She is not the soft girl he wished for, but a naughty boy who is very argumentative to him.
As the one who does not go to school in the family, the second child’s “job” every day is to accompany the wives to the park and to take grandparents for a walk and buy groceries. There is a lot to do, and because he eats three meals a day at home, the diet is inevitably a little too good. The little guy has grown round and looks very festive.
"Brother, I want to eat that piece of meat. Mm-hmm, give me the top piece."
Looking at the greasy braised pork with preserved vegetables and authentic fatty pork belly, it looked greasy and very appetizing. Cao Sixun sat on the side and listened to his little brother's instructions, and couldn't help but smack his lips, "Xiaobao, isn't this meat a bit too fatty? You just ate a piece, isn't it greasy? Otherwise, can I peel a shrimp for you?"
"No, brother, I want to eat meat."
Looking at the pitiful look of the little guy, the older children at the table couldn't help but think of their own childhood. It seemed that they also behaved like this when they were young.
"Okay, okay, I'll find you a thinner piece. We need to save some space for something else, right?"
The meal was very enjoyable and both adults and children were very full.
The consequence of eating too much at noon was that no one touched their chopsticks for dinner. Knowing how big their appetites were, they just steamed some buns and cooked a pot of soy milk for dinner. The children had snacks all afternoon, and no one cared what to eat for dinner. The greedy little ones leaned on the adults' arms, ate a few pieces of meat, and then couldn't wait to sit on their own little stools because the Spring Festival Gala was about to begin.
In this year that connects the past and the future, the Spring Festival Gala is exceptionally lively.
Shen Anning sat with her sister-in-law's mother, and the three of them talked privately. When they talked about the children growing up, she was stunned for a moment.
In the blink of an eye, her eldest son Cao Siheng has already gone to college. In a few years, she will be old enough to become a mother-in-law or a grandmother.
Time passes so fast, so fast that it dilutes all the sorrow and the distant memories.
When she returned to the room at night, Shen Anning, who had been fooling around with the man, became energetic and pulled the yawning Cao Jingheng to give her a red envelope.
"My goodness, there are too many children at home, and wrapping up the red envelopes is a technical job."
After glaring at the clumsy man, Shen Anning kept moving his hands, counting money and stuffing red envelopes, "Then you insisted on doing the work when you were full of energy just now... You deserve it!"
"Hey, each one of these is the same? Don't make a mistake if you wrap it, or your son will say you are partial and treat the New Year's money differently." The New Year's money wrapped two years ago was placed in the drawer several days in advance. In the morning, when Cao Jingheng had no change to buy breakfast, he just picked one at random. As luck would have it, the one was given to his youngest son, who kept playing with it for several months.
"I will definitely not make this kind of mistake again, as we have learned from previous mistakes." There was two hundred yuan in a red envelope. This was what Shen Anning and her brothers and sisters had agreed on. No matter whether they were older or younger children, the standard was unified.
Holidays always pass faster than ordinary days. The seven-day Spring Festival holiday was over very quickly. Adults need to go to work and children don’t need to go to school. The old and the young are left at home. The old are willing to be spoiled and the young are willing to be coaxed. Without the middle generation to take care of the family, the family’s happiness index has risen sharply.
Even when Cao Jingheng came home every day, the twins would happily call him "Dad" and "Dad" all the time, which actually made the straight man become much gentler.
Unfortunately, such good days did not last long.
On a day without any special symptoms, after finishing the work at hand, at 5:30, Shen Anning punched in and left work. She passed by the delicatessen and bought two roast ducks.
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