Laba will also soak Laba garlic on this day. On this day, garlic cloves are put in high vinegar, sealed and eaten in jiaozi for Chinese New Year. By the end of the year, garlic is soaked like jade, and vinegar has some spicy taste, which makes people want to eat more jiaozi. In Beijing, during the Spring Festival, every family eats jiaozi.
Since Laba, shopkeepers have increased their efforts to buy new year's goods on the ground, and there are many stalls on the street-selling Spring Festival couplets, New Year pictures, honey products, daffodils and the like, which will only appear in this season. These stalls, which catch up with the new year's goods, have taught the children to have a fast heartbeat. In hutongs, the hawking sounds are more complicated than usual, and some only appear in the twelfth lunar month, such as selling constitutional books, pine branches, barley seeds, rice cakes and so on.
When there was an emperor, schoolchildren didn't go to school on the 19th of the twelfth lunar month and took annual leave in January. When children prepare for the Spring Festival, the first thing they do is almost to buy mixed food. This is made of various dried fruits (peanuts, dates, hazelnuts, chestnuts, etc.). ) mixed with candied fruit, ordinary with skin, advanced without skin-such as ordinary with skin and advanced with hazelnut. Children like to eat these odds and ends. Even if they don't have jiaozi to eat, they have to buy mixed food. Their second big thing is to buy firecrackers, especially boys. I'm afraid the third thing is to buy toys-kites, diabolos, harmonicas, etc. -And New Year pictures.
Children are anxious, adults are nervous. They must prepare everything they eat and drink for the New Year. They must also make new shoes and clothes for the children to show a new atmosphere in the new year.
Celebrating the New Year on the 23rd is almost a rehearsal for the New Year. In the old society, firecrackers sounded at every household in King of Man, and the paper image of the kitchen god was burned to ashes with the firecrackers, which was euphemistically called sending the kitchen god to heaven. A few days ago, there were many people selling maltose and glutinous rice sugar in the street. The shape of sugar was rectangular or melon-shaped. According to the old saying, if the kitchen god has sugar stuck to his mouth, he will not report the bad things at home to the jade emperor when he goes to heaven. Now, there are still selling sugar, but it is only for everyone to enjoy, and it is no longer confined to the mouth of the chef.
After twenty-three, everyone will be busy, and the New Year will arrive in a blink of an eye. Before New Year's Eve, every household should put up Spring Festival couplets and have a general cleaning, which is called general cleaning. We must prepare enough meat, chicken, fish, vegetables and rice cakes for at least a week-according to the old custom, most shops are closed before the sixth day of the first month. If you don't prepare food for the next few days, it's not easy to make up temporarily. Also, in the old society, my mother said that it was unlucky to cut everything that should be cut on New Year's Eve, in order to save the knives from the first day to the fifth day of the first month. This means superstition, but it also shows that we are really peace-loving people, and we don't even want to move a kitchen knife at the age of one.
New Year's Eve is really lively. Every family is scrambling to make new year's dishes, and there is wine and meat everywhere. Men, women and children all put on new clothes, put up red couplets outside the door, and put up various New Year pictures in the house. All the houses were lit all night, and guns were fired day and night. People who work outside will go home for a family reunion dinner and worship their ancestors unless they have to. That night, no one slept except very young children, but everyone stayed up late.
The scene of New Year's Day is very different from that of New Year's Eve: on New Year's Eve, the street was crowded with people; On the first day of New Year's Day, all the shops put up wooden boards, and the firecrackers set off last night were piled in front of the door, and the whole city was resting.
Men go out to visit relatives and friends before noon. Women receive guests at home. At the same time, there are many temples open for people to visit inside and outside the city, and vendors set up stalls outside the temples to sell tea, food and various toys. Dazhong Temple outside the North City, Baiyun Temple outside the West City and the Temple of Fire (Long Hall) in the South City are the most famous. However, the first two or three days after the opening of the temple were not very lively, because people were still busy celebrating each other's New Year and had no time and time. On the fifth and sixth day of the fifth lunar month, the temple fair began to be beautiful, and the children went to visit it with great enthusiasm, in order to see the wild interests outside the city, ride donkeys and buy those unique toys for the New Year. There is a car race in the square outside Baiyun Temple. In the old days, it was said that there were camel races. These competitions are not about who is the first and who is the second, but about performing the graceful postures and skills of mules, horses and riders in front of the audience.
Most shops open their doors and set off firecrackers on the sixth day. From dawn to early morning, the sound of guns in the whole city continued. Although Zhang has opened, everyone is not very busy except the shops selling food and other important daily necessities. The guys in the shop can take turns visiting temples, flyovers and operas.
Yuanxiao (Tangyuan) is listed, and the climax of the New Year is the Lantern Festival (the 13th to 17th day of the first month). New Year's Eve is lively, but there is no moonlight; What about the Lantern Festival? It happens to be the bright moon in the sky. Decent New Year's Day. Bright red Spring Festival couplets are posted in front of every household, and people are wearing new clothes, but they are not beautiful enough. Lantern Festival, lanterns are hung everywhere, and the whole street is as lively and beautiful as a happy event. Hundreds of lanterns are hung in famous old shops, some are all glass, some are all horns, and some are gauze lanterns; Some are colorful, and some are all the stories of painting a dream of red mansions or outlaws of the marsh. At that time, it was also an advertisement; As soon as the light is hung, anyone can go shopping; Lighting candles in the light at night will attract more people. This advertisement is not vulgar. Dried fruit shops do a lot of omnivorous business during the Lantern Festival, so they often make all kinds of ice lanterns, or make one or two green dragons with wheat seedlings to attract customers.
Besides hanging lights, there are flowers in the square. A judge at the stake was lit in the Town God Temple, and the flame spit out from the mouth, ears, nose and eyes of the judge's clay sculpture. Hang sky lanterns in the park and fly into the sky like a superstar.
Men and women come out to step on the moon, watch lights and watch fireworks; The people in the street were crowded and motionless. In the old society, women didn't go out easily, and they could get some freedom during the Lantern Festival.
Children buy all kinds of fireworks to set off, even if they don't go to the street to be naughty, they can still play with sound and light at home. There are also lights at home: lanterns-palace lanterns, all kinds of paper lanterns, and gauze lanterns, with Xiaoling inside, which will jingle when the time comes. Everyone must eat dumplings, too. This is indeed a beautiful and happy day.
Blink of an eye, we arrived at the residual light temple. Students go to school and adults go to work as usual. The new year ends on the 19th day of the first month. The twelfth lunar month and the first lunar month are the most leisure times for everyone in rural society, such as pigs, cows and sheep. They are all growing up, so everyone has to kill pigs and sheep after a year of hard work. After the Lantern Festival, the weather turned warmer and everyone went to work again. Although Beijing is a city, it also celebrates the New Year with rural society. It's too noisy.
In the old society, Chinese New Year was inseparable from superstition. Laba porridge, Guandong sugar and jiaozi on New Year's Eve should be offered to the Buddha before people can enjoy them. Meet god on new year's eve; On the second day of the new year, the God of Wealth will be sacrificed and eat Yuanbao soup (wonton). And some people will go to the Temple of Wealth to borrow paper ingots to burn incense. On the eighth day of the first month, the old people should be lucky and pray for their longevity. So the biggest waste at that time was the money to buy wax paper horses. Now that everyone is not superstitious, we can save this money and use it in useful places. It is particularly worth mentioning that today's children are only happy for the New Year and are not influenced by that superstition. They are only happy, not afraid-afraid of gods and ghosts. Perhaps, the Spring Festival is not as lively as before, but it is so sober and healthy. In the past, people celebrated the New Year with the blessings of ghosts and gods. Now is the end of their labor, and everyone should have a happy New Year.