On Friday, Sui Ling Tsang, 49, plans to dress herself and her daughter, Xola, 7, in new red outfits, go out for a special dim sum brunch, and walk around their Chinatown neighborhood looking for the elaborate papier-mâché lion puppets that neighborhood associations parade around from store to store.

Ms. Tsang’s daughter will not be alone in skipping school on Friday, the first day of the lunar calendar observed across much of Asia. In New York City, hundreds if not thousands of absentees are expected as the children and grandchildren of immigrants — and others intent on keeping their traditions very much alive — gather, exchange gifts, and party in celebration of the Asian new year.

At P.S. 124, where Xola is in second grade, nearly half of the students and a third of the teachers are expected to be absent. Classes will be combined and children will spend the morning on art projects, creative writing, and math games. In the afternoon, those students who have not been picked up early by their parents will gather in the auditorium to watch a movie.

Alice Hom, the principal, said she did not blame parents for keeping their children home.

“It’s important for them to be with their family,” Ms. Hom said. For some children, who live with other relatives while their parents work in Chinese restaurants far from home, she said, the day is a rare opportunity to see their parents. Ms. Hom said she herself would rush up to the Bronx after school to have dinner with her mother.