The folk customs in Shaanxi enter the New Year's Pass on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month in rural areas, and the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month is called "New Year". Some places in rural areas are called "offering sacrifices to stoves", that is, offering sacrifices to the "kitchen god" who dominates good and bad luck in order to get enough food and clothing.
After the Spring Festival, people will make preparations for the Spring Festival. Ordinary farmers kill pigs and sheep, grind rice and flour, make tofu, buy vegetables, hang vermicelli and prepare all the food needed for the New Year. From the 27th to 29th of the twelfth lunar month in Guanzhong, it is time for people in Guanzhong to steam steamed buns. Every household should steam a lot of steamed buns and prepare steamed buns.
There are three kinds of steamed buns: one is a "big steamed bun" that the daughter-in-law wants to bring to her parents, which is shaped like a snail's shell and filled with stuffing mixed with vegetable oil, dried noodles and chopped green onion; One is a "small steamed bun" for distant relatives who don't move much, which is shaped like a water chestnut; In addition, the steamed buns eaten at home are made into the shapes of various auspicious animals, such as tigers, birds and fish. Red dots will be painted on the top surface of the steamed buns to symbolize good luck.
These buns and steamed stuffed buns are eaten after the 15th day of the first month, and there is a custom of "not rolling noodles before the 15th day of the first month". Women go to the streets to buy clothes, shoes and socks for the elderly and children, while the elderly buy red paper, New Year pictures, mingbi, white linen paper and other New Year etiquette supplies.
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, people should not go out, visit relatives, and married women should not go back to their parents' homes. From the tenth day to the fifteenth day of the first month, it is called "chasing the festival". My uncle will take lanterns and fish steamed with his own noodles to his nephew's house to "send lights" to his nephew. On the 14th night of the first month, families with new wives and newborn children should display their steamed buns.
Two days before New Year's Day, people in Shaanxi, whether in Guanzhong, southern Shaanxi, northern Shaanxi or urban and rural areas, want to "sweep the house", and people in the city call it cleaning. In front of and behind every house, outside the kiln, even the corners should be cleaned. Paste white paper on the window room again and paste red window grilles. In the early thirties, every household posted couplets and door gods, and hung New Year pictures in the house. The year has finally arrived.
Before dinner on New Year's Eve, every household must clean up the house, yard, front and back of the house, tidy it up, paste red couplets (yellow or green couplets for people in mourning), door gods, window grilles, etc., and paste corresponding couplets at the gate, hall, bedroom, stove room and livestock pen. When everything was ready, they began to light candles, burn incense, set off firecrackers and offer sacrifices to their ancestors.
After that, the whole family, big and small, gathered at a table to have a "reunion dinner", which is commonly called "the Year of Reunion". In the evening, all the houses are brightly lit, the fires are blazing, the young and the old stay up all night, and the furnace is "guarding the old", commonly known as "sitting on the roots of the year".
At the same time, the whole family should take a shower, put on new clothes and pack jiaozi in turn to prepare for the New Year. By midnight (equivalent to 23: 11-1: 11 today), thousands of firecrackers were ringing in unison, meaning "receiving the star" and "welcoming the god of wealth", and some of them also put on incense tables and bowed down. It is said that the God of Wealth will come to the house whose firecrackers ring first. Then, the younger generation kowtows to the elders to pay New Year greetings, and the elders also give the children the "lucky money" prepared in advance.