If your New Year's resolutions haven't gotten off to an auspicious start, or if 2009 is already kicking your ass, lift your spirits at the Chinese New Year Parade. The annual Chinatown spectacle celebrates the newly minted Year of the Ox (a time of prosperity through fortitude and hard work — huzzah) with a dazzling melange of traditional Chinese lion dancers, elaborate costumes, decked-out floats, a 100-foot-long Mystical Dragon — and thousands of Windy City revelers mangling "gung hay fat choi" (roughly translated to "congratulations and be prosperous"). The jam-packed festivities aren't for the claustrophobic, but it's a great way to usher in another new beginning.