Lunar New Year Gifts for Clients (Feb 6, 2027): Etiquette, Taboos, and Why We Don't Suggest Our Box

Lunar New Year: Saturday, February 6, 2027

Seollal (Korea): Sunday, February 7, 2027.

We don't suggest our box for this date. Here's why, and what fits instead.

We sell a $35 logo mug gift box, printed, packed and shipped to each person's address. This guide covers the other options too.

Key facts (each checked at its source on October 29–31, 2026):

• Saturday, February 6, 2027 is Lunar New Year's Day on the Hong Kong government's 2027 holiday list, and Vietnam's 2027 Tết notice puts the first day of the new year on the same Saturday.
• Sunday, February 7, 2027 is Seollal, "the first day of the first lunar month", in the Korea Aerospace Administration's 2027 calendar guidelines (Herald Corp, reporting them).
• Fours are out. "Do not give gifts that add up to four in number. The pronunciation of the word 'four' sounds similar to the Chinese word for 'death'" (Cultural Atlas).
• Black and white are out. "Black and white are traditional colors for funerals" (China Highlights).
• Red, gold and eight are in. "The luckiest number in China is eight" (China Highlights).
• 2027 is the Year of the Goat. The Hong Kong Observatory's 2027 lunar calendar is headed "Ding-wei - year of the Goat" and starts the first lunar month on Saturday, February 6 (Hong Kong Observatory).

This page is part of our 2027 gifting calendar.

When Is Lunar New Year 2027?

Lunar New Year is the first day of the first lunar month, so its date on the everyday calendar moves every year, and in 2027 it isn't even the same day everywhere. Hong Kong and Vietnam start the year on Saturday, February 6. Korea starts it on Sunday, February 7.

In the US, February 6, 2027 is a Saturday, so the last business day before it is Friday, February 5. Hong Kong's list has no separate entry for Sunday, February 7, because the second day falls on a Sunday; the government made the fourth day, Tuesday, February 9, the holiday "in substitution." Vietnam's break runs seven days for public employees, from the 28th day of the old year's last month to the 5th day of the new year.

If you'll greet clients from more than one of these traditions, "Lunar New Year" covers all three. "Chinese New Year" names only one (our suggestion).

What Should You Not Give for Chinese New Year?

Both guides name the same core taboos: fours, black and white, clocks, sharp objects, umbrellas, mirrors and handkerchiefs. Neither names mugs or cups. China Highlights, a China tour company, lists 15 gifts to avoid and ranks clocks first: "Giving a clock or watch as a gift is the biggest no-no in Chinese culture." Cultural Atlas, an Australian guide to migrant cultures researched and edited by Mosaica, gives a shorter list.

Both guides describe Chinese custom. How strictly any one client keeps it is that client's to say.

Is a Mug OK? We Checked Our Own Box

A mug isn't on either list. Neither China Highlights' 15 gifts to avoid nor Cultural Atlas's taboo list names mugs or cups, and Cultural Atlas lists chocolates among the gifts friends "often bring" when visiting. So the problem isn't the mug or the chocolate. It's the count and the colors, and our box gets both wrong.

Four of the six parts go against the customs the guides describe, including both this page opened with: the four, and the black and white. The card and its envelope are white as well. That's why our own 2027 gifting calendar says we don't suggest our box for this date.

What to Give Instead: Red, Gold and Even Numbers

What the guides suggest, by custom:

Red envelopes of money (hongbao in Mandarin, lì xì in Vietnamese) are the season's best-known gift, and the sources describe them inside families: China Highlights' etiquette rules say to "start by presenting a gift to the oldest (or most senior) member if giving money to a large group or whole family," and add: "Never give a monetary amount that includes a four."

On flowers the guides differ: Cultural Atlas lists "flowers (excluding white ones)" as good gifts, and yellow or white flowers as taboo, while China Highlights says "Cut flowers are generally presents for funerals, so do not give them on Chinese New Year!"

Two handing customs from Cultural Atlas, if you deliver in person: "Pass a gift to the recipient with both hands," and "Gifts are not opened immediately or in the presence of the gift-giver."

Tết and Seollal: Same Season, Their Own Customs

The guides above describe Chinese custom. Vietnamese and Korean clients celebrate the same season with traditions of their own, and Korea's official site and Vietnam's state news agency describe them this way:

• Tết (Vietnam). "Giving away lucky money is a traditional Lunar New Year (Tet) custom through which Vietnamese people exchange the best wishes with one another, hoping for a year of peace and good luck." The money goes "in a red envelope, which is meant to pray for good luck and drive away evil spirits." The practice, it adds, is "intended to wish small children good growth and learning success and the elderly, longevity and good health" (VietnamPlus, the Vietnam News Agency, January 29, 2025).
• Seollal (Korea). Korea.net says the holiday's presents "are still used to wish for abundance and health and express gratitude," and, citing survey results, that "food is the top gift for the holiday, with boxes of canned ham and tuna being the most popular." Gift sets, Korea.net adds, "are now a Seollal essential" (Korea.net, February 9, 2024). Its fruit examples include sets of "apples and pears," so the pear taboo above comes from the Chinese guides.

For a Korean client, the day itself is Sunday, February 7, in 2027. Whatever you send, time it for the week before the holiday weekend, when offices are open (our suggestion).

What to Write in a Lunar New Year Card to a Client

Wish the year well, name the client, and keep it short. Each line below is under 300 characters, with no sign-off, and works on any card. Replace [Name] and [Company].

Wishing you and your family health, happiness and a prosperous year ahead, [Name]. Happy Lunar New Year.

Thank you for a wonderful year of working together, [Name]. Wishing you good fortune and good health in the new year.

Happy Lunar New Year from all of us at [Company]. May the year ahead bring you and your family every success.

The traditional greeting, in each language, as these sources give it:

Each greeting belongs to one language; the English lines above work for all three traditions.

Wishes for health, good luck and abundance are the ones Korea.net and VietnamPlus describe above; a line about your work together turns a greeting into a client thank-you (our suggestion). More wording for the year's other dates: holiday card messages for clients.

What Sending Gift Boxes Yourself Takes

If you put together a red-and-gold box for your Lunar New Year list yourself, the steps are the ones any shipped client gift box takes. By our estimate, 25 logo mug gift boxes take about 9 hours of hands-on work (finding and ordering the parts, cleaning up the address list, labels, cards, packing at about 8 minutes a box, drop-off and tracking), plus a week or more waiting for supplies. For the logo mug cocoa box we sell, a do-it-yourself version costs about $38 a box with USPS counter postage and about $34 with commercial postage, with $1,192.84 paid up front for the mugs, the retail supply packs and 25 postage labels (DIY vs ordering, as of Oct 29, 2026). Per box, that comes out about even with our $35, before your time.

What one small mistake costs: a mug packed without a collar can break at the handle and must be bought, packed and shipped again, and a wrong address sends a box away and back.

What to Know Before You Order

• The box doesn't change. Every box holds 4 Lindt LINDOR milk chocolate truffles and a white mug in a matte-black gift box with a magnetic lid; we don't make a red-and-gold version or a set of eight.
• The seal sticker. The order page names the gold seal sticker that closes the tissue before you pay. While "Happy Holidays" is the only sticker in stock, a February box carries that one; your card carries your own words for the day.
• The treats. LINDOR truffles contain milk, soy and barley malt (gluten); read the labels.
• One message per order. Every card in an order carries the same message and sign-off, and each greets its person by first name.
• Where we ship. We ship from Texas to the lower 48 states and Washington, DC, except Texas addresses for now.

Where Personalized Gifts Delivered Fits Around Lunar New Year

Not on February 6. Four truffles in a black box goes against two customs the guides above describe, and we'd rather tell you that here than have a client open it.

Nothing in it is hidden. The order page shows the mug, every person's card and the seal before you pay, and this page lists every part of the box, the four truffles included, so you can decide which clients and which dates it suits.

Where we do fit is the rest of your calendar: a New Year thank-you after the December rush, National Hot Chocolate Day on January 31 (order by Wednesday, January 20, 2027), Employee Appreciation Day on March 5. For those dates, Personalized Gifts Delivered prints your logo small on an 11 oz white ceramic mug, packs a 1.5 oz packet of Ghirardelli premium hot cocoa and 4 Lindt LINDOR milk chocolate truffles inside it, and ships it in a matte-black gift box with a magnetic lid with your printed card on the lid: a custom logo mug gift box, shipped to each client, no minimum, $35 per box, delivered, to each address on your list.