Chuk Tol, Claire!!

Chuk Tol (Happy 1st Birthday) to Claire! We celebrated by having a party that combined both Korean and American traditions! A traditional Korean celebration includes 4 components:

Praying & giving thanks

Making & wearing birthday clothes

Preparing the Tol table and performing the Toljabee ceremony

Sharing food with guests

Here, Claire is dressed in her hanbok, which the Korean traditional dress. Her hanbok was a gift from her foster parents in Korea.

Here, Claire is sitting at her Tol table, where fruit and rice cakes (in the middle of the table in front of Claire) are key foods that are included on all Tol tables. The different rice cakes have different meanings. The white ones on the bottom left are for pure and divine clean spirit and longevity. The reddish colored cakes (top, center) ward of evil spirits so Claire can grow without disease. The green and white moon shaped cakes (bottom, right) are either empty or filled. The empty ones mean that Claire will grow to have a big heart and the filled ones mean that she will grow to be wise.

Food is also presented in towers to show guest that food is plentiful and meant for sharing. In addition to the fruit tower, there is a cookie tower and a candy tower (yum!).

The objects in front of the rice cakes were for Claire's Toljabee ceremony. It is customary to place these objects in front of a child on their first birthday and what they choose first second foretells their future. The objects include:

Money=wealth

Rice=prosperity

Food= public service

Thread = long life

Pencil-scholar

Scissors=talented with her hands

Jujubes (red dates) = many descendents

So, what did Claire choose? She started to grab the jujubes first, but changed her mind and grabbed the pencil, followed by the thread. So, if this holds true, she will be a scholar who will live a long life!

Now, onto some American traditions. Here she is in birthday outfit #2 -a girl can never have too many outfits for special occasions :o) !

She didn't know what to think of the cake! She had more fun digging into it than eating it. She wasn't trying any of it, so we gave her a taste and she really didn't care for it (are you kidding me?!). We tried to feed her some cake a couple of times and she didn't want to have anything to do with eating it...just playing.

Cousin Joey, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed his cake!

Mama and the birthday girl, who is such a blessing!

Dave, Christa, Ben and Claire