Baby Milana’s 100 Days Celebration
The 100th day is a major milestone in a Chinese baby's life.
Baby makes a grand debut on this day, and the event is usually pretty large, celebrated with a lot of traditional foods, red envelopes, and a snip to the hair, or shaving the head.
During baby's first 100 days of life, it's a sacred time of mother/baby bonding as both heal from childbirth, so mom is encouraged to stay indoors and rest with baby. Baby makes his/her grand debut on the 100th day, at the celebratory party where everyone, including relatives and friends, is invited to meet baby for the first time.
Common gifts to give to a Chinese baby at the 100 days of life celebration are jewelry and red envelopes (containing money!).
The 100th day of a baby's life represents that the baby will live 100 years. This celebration stems from ancient times when mortality rates were high, and babies didn't survive birth or live past 30 days. Getting to 100 days is a major milestone that proves how strong and healthy the baby is (and even the mother).
Preparing for baby Milana's 100th-day celebration was exciting to plan! Even though we were in the middle of a pandemic and I couldn't invite relatives or friends, I still tried to make it as fun as possible! I went on the hunt for the perfect dress for her to wear and called a local bakery to customize a cake for the event.
The color red in the Chinese culture symbolizes all of the good stuff: good luck, prosperity, longevity, and fortune, so I searched for a baby cheongsam (traditional Chinese dress) that had a red pattern.
I found a pretty little tulle dress on Etsy with an image of a fish on it. Fish in Chinese is pronounced Yu. My last name is Yu, and although it doesn't mean fish, it’s practically the same pronunciation (different tone). Fish in Chinese are regarded as a symbol of abundance, wealth, good health, and prosperity. Images of fish are in a lot of Chinese artwork and decorative paraphernalia! Knowing this, the baby cheongsam with the fish image gave greater meaning to the dress she got to wear on her big day.
For baby Milana's 100 days of life celebration, my cousin and photographer, Johnny Ma, was super kind and came over to take professional photos. His work/portfolio can be found on Instagram - @johnny_ma1. I decorated baby Milana's room with gold balloons, blew up a giant 100, and dressed her in the cheongsam! It was so fun for me to plan the event, take photos with her, see the gifts my family got for her, and eat a traditional meal with lots of different dishes. It was also refreshing to do something really fun in the middle of a pandemic lockdown and something I got to look forward to doing, especially after 30 days of confinement and not being able to even go anywhere after the 30 days.
We had a lineup of traditional dishes for the celebration meal, including homemade bone broth, steamed fish, steamed vegetables, duck, chicken, pork, and noodles to represent good health and long life. Specifically, the key dishes in the celebration meal are: drunken chicken soup (I found a good recipe here), peanuts dipped in vinegar, pig’s feet, and red eggs which are basically just eggs dyed in edible red coloring (see here for a recipe)! For dessert, I went the western route and customized a red velvet cake I ordered from a local gluten-free bakery. Baby Milana also had a little snip of hair taken off!
The photos turned out SO amazing and beautiful, and I had to get them printed. I went on Mixbook to have them printed onto photo cards that I mailed out to family and friends, and I also used them to create an acrylic block that sits on my work-from-home desk!
Creating photo cards and the acrylic block on Mixbook was SUPER easy and an enjoyable experience. Mixbook has so many beautiful templates to work off of and fun stickers, layouts, and text options. I highly recommend them for any project - whether it's a photo book, canvas print, poster, wall art, or invitations! I happened to stumble upon them when researching different platforms to turn digital memories into print. I almost went with another major photo service company but I'm so happy I came across Mixbook because they’ve created such beautiful pieces for me.