The annual Lantern Festival has come again, also known as Shangyuan Festival, which is another traditional festival after the Spring Festival.

Lantern Festival began in the Western Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. Lantern Festival viewing began in the period of Emperor Han Ming in the East. Ming Di advocated Buddhism. He heard that there was a practice of monks observing Buddhist relics and lighting lamps to worship Buddha on the 15th day of the first month in Buddhism, so he ordered to light lamps in palaces and temples to worship Buddha that night, so that all the cremation and ordinary people hung lamps. Later, this Buddhist ceremonial festival gradually formed a grand folk festival. As far as the length of the festival is concerned, it was only one day in the Han Dynasty, three days in the Tang Dynasty, and five days in the Song Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, the lights were lit from the eighth day of the eighth month until the night of the seventeenth day of the first month, for ten days.

Time goes by, but many folk customs of Lantern Festival are still very popular. For example, dragon dancing, lion dancing, roller boating, walking on stilts, yangko dancing, solve riddles on the lanterns, fireworks and other activities add luster to the Lantern Festival.

In addition to these activities, the Lantern Festival also has the custom of making dumplings. Today, I was lucky enough to go to my grandmother's house with my parents. It happened that my grandmother was making Yuanxiao, so I learned from her. Grandma first mixed glutinous rice flour with boiling water, and then kept kneading the dough vigorously until it was as tough as plasticine. Then she kneaded the dough into the shape of a pagoda, dragged pieces of dough from the top of the pagoda, kneaded it into a round ball, cut a hole in the middle, and kneaded the hole bigger and bigger with both hands. Put the prepared bean paste stuffing in this hole, knead it slowly with your thumb and forefinger, and then seal the hole. Finally, I put it in this hole. After seeing my grandmother's dumplings, my hands couldn't help itching, and I rolled up my sleeves and wrapped them up. Although the dumplings I packed were small, varied in size and grotesque, they were praised by my grandmother.

The last process is to cook Yuanxiao. We put Yuanxiao in boiling water, and soon the water boiled away, and Yuanxiao floated on the water one by one. Seeing these glistening and round Lantern Festival is really eye-catching! We all feel very comfortable eating this hot Yuanxiao. My face is full of smiles and I say happily, "Yuanxiao symbolizes that our life is sweet and beautiful, round and round."