the most sacred task

One of my family's yearly rituals is to open up my house for a day of delicious food and lotsa gambling on Day 2 (usually) of the Lunar New Year.

Today, while Mama busied herself with whipping up her famous prawn noodle soup, curry chicken, fried bee hoon (vermicelli) etc, I was assigned the task of preparing ang pows (red packets with a token sum of money that married couples give out to the juniors as part of their CNY well wishes for them) for Mama to give out to the young guests we were expecting - mostly friends of my Bro's.

Mama thrusted a stack of $2 notes and a bundle of red packets at me and instructed me to slot the dollar notes into the envelopes. I think I had the most privileged task - Mr P got assigned to chill canned drinks and then arrange them nicely in an esky; Uncle was Mama's personal assistant in the kitchen; and Bro was still in slumberland but he had to set up the mahjong tables and poker tables when he got up.

There, here are the sealed packets with $XX (confidential family secret hehe) inside each of them. Job done. Easy peasy.