The origin of the Spring Festival is short in 40 words: the Spring Festival originated from the activities of offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors in the early and late ancient times, with a history of more than 4,000 years. In ancient times, people held sacrificial activities at the beginning of the new year after the one-year-old farming ended, in order to repay the kindness of the gods and ancestors of heaven and earth, drive away evil spirits, accept blessings and pray for the new year.

The early festival culture embodies the ancient people's humanistic spirit of advocating nature, the unity of man and nature, cautiously pursuing the future, and firmly thinking about the source.

The historical development of the Spring Festival

The Han Dynasty was the first great development period after the unification of China. The economic and cultural exchanges between the North and the South make customs and habits merge with each other, which provides good social conditions for the spread and popularization of holiday customs. Since then, there have been records of year-end sacrifices in the literature. For example, Mao Cui's "Four-person Monthly Order" in the Eastern Han Dynasty mentioned that "the first day of the first month is the right day. Bow to your wife and ancestors. " People's custom activities to celebrate the New Year in China are becoming more and more extensive and rich. ?

During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there was a written record of the custom of keeping old on New Year's Eve. For example, "Local Customs" written in the early Zhou Dynasty of Jin Dynasty records that on New Year's Eve, people give gifts to each other, which is called "Feeding the Year"; Young and old get together and wish a complete song called "age division"; Sleeping all the year round, waiting for dawn, is called "guarding the age".

In the Tang Dynasty, people not only visited their homes to pay New Year greetings, but also invented a "New Year greeting card". Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty, made a greeting card with red gold foil and gave it to ministers as a royal book "Celebrating the World". This form soon spread among the people and changed to plum blossom stationery. At that time, this kind of "New Year greeting card" was called "flying card".

In the Song Dynasty, people began to make "guns" (that is, firecrackers) with paper tubes and hemp sticks wrapped in gunpowder. The custom of setting off firecrackers on New Year's Eve and Spring Festival has gradually become popular. "Dream of Tokyo" said: "It is night, firecrackers are forbidden in the mountains, and the sound is heard outside."