A Korean Dol {Part 1}

Since both boys celebrated birthdays recently and at the time we were either traveling or still too jet-lagged to even think about a birthday party, we finally got around to planning a small get-together to celebrate our two fun boys. Since we just returned from S. Korea less than a week before Neylan's birthday, we decided to have a traditional Korean first birthday. The first birthday in Korea is a very big deal. Becuase of the high mortality rate of infants prior to a year, if an infant lived to their first birthday, a very large celebration was held. Today many babies are meeting this milestone, but the tradition and celebrations continue. The party is called a dol and always contains certain elements and traditions. Since Neylan would have likely had some sort of birthday party if he were still there, we wanted to carry out the traditional Korean birthday and let both boys experience it this year. After the first birthday, Koreans don't celebrate in this big fashion until the 60th birthday.

One of the elements that is very popular is a banner that says Happy Birthday. I decided to make this one and was pleased with the outcome.

Another traditional element is the fruit and candy towers. Stacking the foods high signifies a life of prosperity for the baby.

I did not do a great job of planning the cake or dessert. Traditionally a rice cake with rainbow layers is prepared. Instead, we had cupcakes, traditional Korean candy, which we purchased there, and cookies and brownies.

Another feature of the party is the photo board. Photos of the baby from birth to age one are displayed for the guests to see. We were so fortunate to have received a stack of pictures of Neylan that his foster mom took for us. None have dates or ages on them, but they seem to be in chronological order. We also had some professional pictures taken this week that we were able to display as well.

I don't believe this is part of a traditional dol, but had seen this idea so wanted to incorporate it into our party. It is tradition for the grandparents to say a prayer or give a blessing to the child at the dol. I wanted everyone to have the chance to write something for each of the boys, so we made cards with their name stamp on them and allowed everyone to write a prayer, blessing, or birthday wish on them. These will be saved for them in their scrapbooks.

The highlight of the dol is the future telling ritual. We gathered several objects, signifying various occupations or fortunes for the kids and made containers to represent each one. As the guests mingled we encouraged everyone to guess which one Neylan would choose during the game. A ticket was placed in the container for every vote. We used money to represent wealth, a bowl of rice to represent that the child will never go hungry, some thread to mean the child will have long life, a computer mouse to represent a technology career, a microphone to represent a performer, a pencil to represent a scholar, and a stethoscope to represent a doctor. What do you think he chose?

The last element of the celebration is the outfit that the child wears. He/she wears a hanbok, the traditional Korean dress outfit. We bought each of the boys one and were given one by Neylan's foster mom. After dinner we got the boys dressed for the game and a few pictures.

In an effort to keep this post a bit shorter, I will continue it with the actual celebration pics in the next post.