| Several Chinese holiday celebrations use lanterns at night, combined with fireworks. The Mid-Autumn Festival, Lantern Festival (to honor Buddha), and the Tomb Sweeping Festival uses lanterns. If you go to a park during any one of those festivals, chances are you'll see kids holding lanterns on sticks and blowing up firecrackers. It's all fun. Sometimes we get to eat mooncakes as well. Lanterns are also used for playing riddles.
It isn't hard to make a Chinese lantern. Here's the DIY instructions.
Materials
Directions
- Take a sheet of paper. Draw some shapes, like stars and whatnot and cut them out. Be careful not to rip the paper
- Decorate paper with pictures or writing. This isn't necessary. A plain lantern is pretty too.
- Roll the piece of paper to make a tube. Don't make it too tight. Make sure that your decorations are on the outside to that everyone can see them. Tape the ends of the paper to each other to make the tube.
- Punch four holes at the top of the tube. Cut four pieces of string as long as the tube. Tie one piece of string to each hole. Tie the four strings together. Cut another piece of string and tie it to the other strings so you can hang up the lantern.
If you know any riddles, write one on a piece of paper. Tape it to the lantern. Let your friends try to guess the answer. Give a reward to the person who gets it first. | 
