What is the Moon Festival?

The Moon Festival–which actually has many different names like the Mid-Autumn Festival or in traditional Chinese Zhongqiu Jie–celebrates the 8th lunar moon of Chinese calendar. In fact it is always held on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese calendar. This year that means the Moon Festival will be on October 3rd, 2009.

The Moon Festival is celebrated all over the world; this festive picture was taken in Montreal.

The Moon Festival is a time to celebrate the harvest from the summer. While families gather to admire the harvest moon, they also eat and share moon cakes. Moon cakes are a sweet pastry usually filled with a sesame paste although they may come in many different flavors.

Not only are they yummy, but moon cakes are pretty to look at.

Here are a few sites to help enjoy the lunar Moon Festival virtually:  Moonchildren.com and China-Family-Adventure Also, there are tons of resources at Childbook.com–like more moon festival links, information, coloring pages, and even lesson plans.

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