New years eve "13 dish meal" (Family food)

Every new year's eve, me and my father would cook up thirteen dishes. Because it is of Chinese tradition that a Chinese family would cook thirteen dishes as a symbol of satisfaction and to avoid famine for the members of the household. This tradition has been started by my ancestors and has been passed down through generations. It's in every Chinese tradition that we would wear a red shirt for luck, a jade pendant for good health, and consume round circular foods for prosperity. This tradition is practiced twice if the family is half Chinese (example: Chinese-American, Chinese-Filipino) the new year which is on January 1 and the lunar new year on February and we greet each other with the sentence "Gong si fa tsai"(Kong si fa chai)  or "Xin nian kuai le"(Shin nyan kuay leh) which means "Happy lunar new year". So in every thirteen dishes is almost the same since it's just for the new year and there is nothing special about it in particular. But we never cook anything with chicken in our dish since it will give us bad luck. We always had Callios, which my father always makes during the new years. Meat balls which was prepared by our maids (Since my mother has passed on the last of June 14, 1996 she used to make 13 dishes with the aid of our maids). Lechon Baboy or Suckling pig which was always picked up by my uncle & my older brother from "ping-pings Lechon baboy". Baked pasta bolognese which was cooked by my brother which would leave the kitchen a muck after he cooks. And finally Shabu-Shabu which was prepared by me. When I cook I never leave the kitchen in such a mess that the maids couldn't pass through the floor anymore. So I cleaned some of the pots and pans that I have used to make the Shabu-Shabu. And the rest of the dishes was prepared by our maids. steamed tiger prawns, steamed Lapu-Lapu fish, Dinuguan, Lumpiang gulay, Kiampeng (Ki-yam-pung; Chinese sticky friend rice) and there were three dishes left that I can't recall. Since that there were thirteen dishes to memorize (I will try my best to memorize them again). However, since an incident occured last 2 years ago that our table has burned into a smoldering crisp due to a firework went off on it, We never set fireworks at home anymore (well at least I can set some off from the streets outside of our gates). Instead we watched our neighbors' fireworks and let them set it off and see it from our 3rd floor office building. At the begining of new years eve I thought I would celebrate my new year as boring as hell but I realized that it was the best one I've had because I teared and saw fireworks that were truly magnificent to watch from atop of the 3rd floor of our office building. And I'm looking forward to an excellent year this 2011. For I have enjoyed it's 1st day.