After the stove was delivered, the purchase and hoarding of new year's goods really began, such as Spring Festival couplets, door stickers, blessings and New Year pictures. These auspicious red papers bring ubiquitous joy and enthusiasm to the New Year. There are often old houses with front and back doors, with Spring Festival couplets on the front door and door stickers on the back door-two generals in the early Tang Dynasty, Qin and Weichi Gong. It is said that many monsters will stay away from these two door gods when they are stuck on the gate, and it is very interesting for children to fear and respect these two door gods with quite ferocious images. At home, the walls or doors are covered with happy New Year pictures, such as Kirin gifts and dolls. Nowadays, most families have replaced colorful New Year pictures with beautiful and exquisite calendars, but the word "Fu" has been pasted much more. That's because more and more merchants are willing to stick one or two "Fu" words as gifts on new year's goods, and the word "Fu" has to be stuck upside down on the door.
New Year's Eve
On New Year's Eve, Yangzhou people have always been enthusiastic about food. Preserved bacon, chicken, salted fish, ham and sausage have all been cut or torn to the table. This is the pioneer, and then there are all kinds of boiling, boiling, frying and frying, with various patterns and attractive fragrance. However, in any case, the meat should be cooked with taro on the table. Among vegetables, Yangzhou people are also very particular about eating water celery, which means Passepartout, vermicelli means flowing water, pea means Yangzhou people pronounce "Andu", and vegetable tofu means refreshing. People often say that "fish makes fire and meat produces phlegm, and vegetable tofu keeps peace." It seems that even at such an important moment when people can put down their stomachs and eat and drink, people will never forget a reasonable collocation and a balanced diet. Braised silver carp in oil is definitely indispensable, but it can't be eaten until the first day of the first month, because "there is still more than one year".
During the Chinese New Year, big fish and big meat will support people. At this time, some porridge and side dishes can make people drool. The side dish can be dried white radish pickled by yourself. Yangzhou people like to eat this kind of dried radish soaked in salt water, and sprinkle with pepper noodles after drying. Pick them one by one, put them in small bottles and cans, take out a few pieces when you want to eat, and chew them in your mouth. It's refreshing. Side dishes can also be home-cooked mixed rice. This mixed rice is actually a mixed vegetable. The raw materials are all kinds of seasonal fresh and rare, such as lotus root, cress, pea seedlings, wild water chestnut, winter bamboo shoots, day lily, mushrooms, bean sprouts, carrots, fungus ... there must be more than ten kinds. The materials are carefully selected by street housewives and are well prepared. They will fry in the same pot again. Stir-fried, you see, red, yellow, white and green, colorful, placed in porcelain bowls, emitting attractive fragrance, just looking at it is enough to make people drool. The next process is very simple, one word: mixed, two words: cold salad. Stir well and pour sesame oil along the edge of the bowl, and you're done. This is the most popular cold dish in Yangzhou during the Spring Festival, so the quantity cannot be less. The earthenware bowl for assorted rice is as big as a washbasin.
After dinner, it's time to watch the Spring Festival Gala on TV. It was not until firecrackers were set off on TV that firecrackers sounded outside the house, one after another, because there is a saying in China that when the new year comes, the first thing for every household to open the door is to set off firecrackers and use firecrackers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. At last, the children waited for this moment. They all came out of the door with firecrackers and fireworks, cheering and jumping in the sky. As for firecrackers, children in every household have their own gadgets, such as white tadpoles that ring when squeezed, and guns like red whips. Suddenly thrown out, pebbles fly around, strong roads can't hurt people, sparks can't hurt people, but often that kind of shock can scare people who don't understand, and their hearts beat faster. Looking back, it turned out that several children were making trouble.
New Year
On New Year's Eve, the first thing children do when they wake up the next day is to touch their pillows. The adults had put cloud cakes, oranges and lucky money there the night before. Touching the cake means being high from the ground. Touching oranges means good luck. Touching the lucky money is making a fortune. On the first day of the first month, people should put on new clothes from head to toe and from inside to outside. With the new atmosphere, people's spirit has also been greatly inspired. Yangzhou people want to eat meatballs in the morning, which means "a round and full life is better than a southern mountain". In some places in Yangzhou, there is a custom of not eating all the meatballs in the bowl, so you must keep an even number of meatballs for good luck.
The habit of visiting each other to celebrate the New Year cannot be changed even if the society is developed. China New Year was originally a lively festival. At this time, all kinds of fruits and cakes have to be placed at home to entertain visiting relatives and friends. In the old days, there was a table or chef at home, and the high-legged plates were placed symmetrically on it in a ladder shape. Four kinds of fruits, citron, bergamot, apple and orange, are all desirable on the plate, and a table box is also used. Yangzhou people call it a brown box, with candied dates, cloud cakes, peach cakes, winter sugar and big Beijing fruits on it. Big families pay attention to ostentation and extravagance during the New Year. There are eight small pieces of Yangzhou traditional tea and food on the table-Meigong cake, Taishi cake, black hemp, white hemp, chrysanthemum cake, a thread, small bergamot and small apple. Their fillings are exquisite in shape and shape, with five flavors, such as red bean paste, jujube paste, salt and pepper, five kernels and sesame seeds, vivid in image and different in taste. Yangzhou cakes are notoriously delicious. Although people don't have so many old rules now, the custom of Yangzhou people eating tea and cakes during the New Year has been inherited. Third, bean paste buns, jade roast buns, layered oil cakes and crab soup buns ... these famous Chinese and foreign names are just boxes of food that Yangzhou people put at home during the New Year.
Besides traditional cakes and fruits, modern supermarkets offer people too many choices. Melon, almond, peanut, pine nut, pistachio, chocolate, yogurt, beef jerky, potato chips ... even the ice cream eaten in summer is pouring into every household crazily. Gone are the famine years of the 1960s and 1970s, when tickets were sold on a per-head basis, without waiting in line for hours.
In recent years, Yangzhou citizens have gradually formed the habit of visiting the flower market to buy flowers in the New Year. Narcissus, Chimonanthus praecox, jubilant peony, kumquat, "Koucai" flower wealth tree, and Acer truncatum have all become people's favorite objects. In the new year, decorating their rooms with these colorful and fragrant flower bonsai will really make people feel refreshed, full of vitality and feel the breath of spring.
There are many new year's goods, which really need to be elaborated. I don't think I can finish it in three days and nights. However, whether old or new, people's attitude towards the Spring Festival is still the same enthusiasm. This is the most lively and important festival for generations of Chinese people. I have worked hard for a year. Should they really not satisfy themselves these days? New year's goods-really ignited people's endless yearning and deep attachment to the Spring Festival.
In the old society, as soon as the first day of the New Year passed, people rushed to the Earth Temple with pig heads, incense sticks and firecrackers to burn incense. Don't sleep after burning incense and go home until dawn. At the first light, the "financial gate" (gate) is lit, incense is lit, and firecrackers are set off to celebrate the New Year. Then the younger generation gets up to pay a New Year call to the elder, and the elder sends oranges and cloud cakes to the younger generation. This is called "taking care of the overall situation" and "step by step". Then have breakfast "Tangyuan and Noodles". After breakfast, young people and middle-aged people go out to pay New Year greetings to their neighbors. They have cigarettes, melon seeds, sweets, cakes and other foods at home, and the elderly receive guests who come to pay New Year greetings. At noon, we don't cook New Year's Eve dinner, but eat the leftovers of New Year's Eve dinner, which is called "Chen Bienian" ("Chen Bienian" has been eaten until the fourth day of the first month).
On the first day, sharp tools such as knives and scissors are not needed to ward off evil spirits; Do not wash clothes to show leisure; Don't sweep the floor. In order to "cherish" the fifth day of the first month, it is called "God of Wealth Day". As soon as people get up, they "pick the water of God of Wealth". Then go to the road near home to burn money and turn paper into paper. This is called "burning the market". For breakfast, some eat jiaozi, some eat noodles, and some fry glutinous rice cooked on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month. On this day, people wear hats and masks to congratulate the God of Wealth, which is called "jumping the God of Wealth". The host gives cakes and buns to show "thanks to the God of Wealth".
After the founding of New China, the custom of burning incense and worshipping God has disappeared in many families. On the first day of New Year's Day, some units held collective worship, and the people also carried out New Year greetings to the families of martyrs and various cultural activities.