(1) The 23rd day of the Lunar New Year: Zaos worship

The God of Zaos is commonly known as "Zao Wang Wang". The sacrifice of the stove is a signal of the arrival of the old calendar, the old Beijingers called "a small year". Nursery rhymes say: "Sugar Melon sacrificial stove, New Year sacrificial stove, the New Year comes, the girl wants flowers, the boy wants guns ......" People will be posted in the kitchen of the Zaowang master, Zaowang granny sugar melon offerings, hoping to stick their mouths, so as not to go to the sky blind report. Then, the Zaowang master and Zaowang grandmother are burned to send the Zaoshen to heaven.

(2) The 24th day of the Lunar New Year: Sweeping the house

The ancient Spring Festival sweeping is called "sweeping the year", which originated from the ancient people to drive out the disease of a religious ceremony. Later gradually evolved into the end of the year cleaning. According to early folklore, "dust" and old "Chen" is a harmonic. In the first month of the lunar new year, sweep away all the dust in the home, meaning that the removal of the old year's old things, the bad "poor luck", "bad luck" are swept out, in order to meet the new year.

(3) Lunar New Year's Eve: Making Bean Curd

As the saying goes, "On the 25th day of the Lunar New Year, push the mill to make bean curd". But why "tofu"? Tofu itself is a good substitute for meat, and in the past, poor people always looked forward to a good meal on New Year's Day. Tofu is a cross between meat and vegetables and can be used in different dishes instead of meat. Of course, "making tofu" also has a symbolic meaning.

(4) The 26th day of the Lunar New Year: Cutting the meat

A folk proverb says, "On the 26th day of the Lunar New Year, we kill the pigs and cut the meat for the new year," referring to the day when the main preparations are made to prepare for the New Year's meat. The so-called kill pigs, of course, is to kill their own pigs; the so-called cut meat, refers to the poor people who do not have pigs to go to the market to buy New Year's meat. The reason for putting "cutting New Year's meat" into the New Year's rhyme is that the economy of the farming society is not well developed, and people can only eat meat in the annual New Year's Day folk tradition of stewing meat on the twenty-sixth day of the Lunar New Year, which is therefore called "New Year's meat".

(5) Lunar New Year's Eve 27: slaughter of the New Year's chicken

To the Lunar New Year's Eve 27, the Spring Festival's footsteps are getting closer and closer, close to the New Year's Eve, as if we have heard the bells. All the houses and streets were bustling with activity. After yesterday's delicious meat stew, the most important thing to do today is to slaughter the chickens. This is the meaning of the folk song, "On the twenty-seventh day of the Lunar New Year, we slaughter the New Year's chickens".

(6) Lunar New Year's Eve: Steaming Steamed Buns

"On the 29th day of the Lunar New Year, steamed buns are made." In China's Spring Festival folklore, in this day to the Lunar New Year 28 has been good white flour steamed into steamed buns, who steamed steamed steamed buns big, steamed good, in the new year, whose family will be prosperous, to get a good luck. Families also steamed jujube cake, rice cakes, beanbags, beanbags on the red dot or with "anise" (big material) printed on the red seal, but also like to make the beanbags into thorns (with mung beans to do the eye, and then scissors on the beanbags cut into the shape of thorns), the meaning of "fortune".

(7) New Year's Eve: Eating Dumplings to Observe the New Year

The New Year's Eve dinner for the old Beijingers was mainly dumplings. Dumplings should be made with meat and vegetables, which is a homonym for "having wealth". The whole family takes turns chopping the stuffing, and while chopping, they say "chop the little man". On New Year's Eve, there is the custom of keeping watch. Year-end vigil from the beginning of the New Year's Eve dinner, we eat slowly, while talking, while tasting wine, until late at night. And when the clock strikes 12 midnight, everyone cheers together and eats dumplings to welcome the first day of the New Year.

(8) The First Day of the New Year: Paying New Year's Worship

One of the most important things to do on the first day of the New Year is to start paying New Year's Worship, and all of Beijing's temple fairs begin on this day. According to the old Beijing custom, on the first day, the son-in-law has to see his father-in-law and mother-in-law first, and nowadays it is usually on the second day that the daughter and son-in-law go back to the mother's house to pay New Year's visit. Old Beijingers pay great attention to the New Year's visit. The host family should prepare a food box with all kinds of dried fruits, called "jili fruit". No matter how many people come to pay New Year's call, the food box must be full to show respect and blessing to the guests.

Expanded Information:

The Spring Festival is the traditional Chinese New Year, commonly called Nian Nian. Chinese New Year, commonly known as the "New Year Festival", traditionally known as the New Year, the Great Year, the New Year, but also known verbally as the Dusui year, the celebration of the New Year, the New Year, the Chinese New Year, is the Chinese nation's most solemn traditional festival.

The Spring Festival, which originated in the Yinshang period, is one of the grandest, liveliest and most important ancient traditional festivals in China, with sacrifices to gods and ancestors at the end of the year. In Chinese folklore, the Spring Festival traditionally refers to the period from the Lunar New Year's Festival on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, or the Zao Festival on the twenty-third or twenty-fourth day of the Lunar New Year, until the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar year, with New Year's Eve and the first day of the first month of the lunar year as the climax.

During the Spring Festival, the Han Chinese and some ethnic minorities in China celebrate with various activities. These activities all focus on worshipping ancestral gods, honoring ancestors, getting rid of the old and bringing in the new, welcoming good fortune, and praying for a good year. The activities of the Spring Festival are rich and colorful, with strong characteristics of each ethnic group. Influenced by the Chinese culture, some countries and nationalities belonging to the Chinese cultural circle also have the custom of celebrating the Spring Festival.