In our usual sense, "Chinese New Year" means not only the day of "Spring Festival", but also from the day of "Spring Festival" until after the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month. During this period, the festive atmosphere is quite strong. Because only when the Chinese New Year is over can we meet our long-lost relatives and reunite with them. Children can not only taste many delicious foods that they can't enjoy at ordinary times, but also get a lot of lucky money that is completely at their own disposal. That is the happiest thing.
Let's talk about the preparatory stage of 2008 first. The most important preparation for the Chinese New Year is the Spring Festival. In order to let family and friends have fun, women usually have to prepare a lot of Spring Festival. The autumn harvest is over, and they have time to buy back the distiller's yeast in the market and brew a jar of sweet rice wine with the newly harvested glutinous rice to entertain their relatives who come back from afar and relatives and friends who come to pay New Year greetings. Rice wine is boiled with a wine girl. Take a sip and it will be sweet from the mouth to the heart, but it will not lose the fragrance of the wine. In addition to brewing wine, they will also make delicious salted duck from their own ducks, sausage with delicious color and flavor from pork, or preserved fish from silver carp in collective fish ponds, and so on. After all these meat products are made, as long as it is sunny, people hang them up with bamboo poles and dry them in the sun until they are oily. Every family is like this, which constitutes a landscape in our hometown in winter. The above are the new year's goods to be cooked in a pot and served on a plate. Others are made of rice flour mixed with seasonings and then kneaded into smaller fried fruits with different shapes. The melon seeds and preserves bought in the market are specially used for drinking tea and chatting.
On the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, the family called it "the off-year holiday", saying that it was the day when the Kitchen God returned to the Heavenly Palace to report his work, so he had to cook a lot of delicious food on this day, so that he could speak well in front of the Jade Emperor. When he came back, it would be a blessing to the world, so there was a saying that "Heaven played good deeds and returned to the Palace to bring good luck". On this day, every household removes all the appliances in the house, including benches, tables and chairs, cabinets, etc., and then cleans the dust and cobwebs inside and outside the house, making the whole house clean and tidy.
Two days before the Chinese New Year, each family will send representatives to the nearby market to buy the last new year's goods, such as firecrackers, candles, incense and couplets, paintings of door gods, etc. Of course, if any family has someone who is good at calligraphy, the couplets will be directly in his charge. Couplets and paintings of door gods were posted on the day of the Spring Festival, both of which were for a prosperous and festive occasion.
The most important thing is the Spring Festival, which has been prepared for so long, and finally "New Year", the highlight of which is the New Year's Eve dinner. At four or five o'clock in the afternoon, people began to set off firecrackers to eat New Year's Eve. The crackling sound of firecrackers adds infinite lively and festive atmosphere to the festival. In a short time, colorful fireworks and magnificent firecrackers were actually set off. As in other places, the whole family sat on the table, tasting those delicious dishes, and everyone raised their glasses to express their good wishes for their families. The difference is that instead of eating jiaozi for the New Year like most parts of northern China, we just cook a sumptuous meal, and we won't eat it all, which means "more than one year". Before dinner, you must put chopsticks on the set rice bowl, pour a few drops of tea into each bowl, and the youngest person in the family will call: Grandfather, Grandmother and Grandparents to go home for the New Year (the called people should all be dead), then drop the tea in each bowl, and invite the oldest person in the family to sit on the table before everyone can move chopsticks. Although these processes seem a little troublesome, they show respect for ancestors and filial piety to elders. They unconsciously provide us with a stage to teach us and our children how to be human. In the process of talking and laughing, everyone enjoyed the most abundant New Year's Eve dinner. Later, as usual, adults will give lucky money to the elderly and children, and ask the children to put the lucky money under the pillow to pray for peace throughout the year.
On the first day of New Year's Day, it is a day to offer sacrifices to Guanyin. On this day, the whole family can only eat vegetarian food, such as tofu, cabbage, radish, etc., and they should eat vegetarian food at every meal, indicating that the crops are growing well in the new year, so don't pull weeds in the farmland. After breakfast, boys and girls are often ready to go shopping in the city to buy clothes, hats, shoes and socks, while good men and women go to the local Buddhist temple to burn incense and pray for a sign, so there are quite a few pedestrians on this day, which leads to frequent traffic jams. However, people will never visit relatives and pay New Year greetings to relatives on this day. On the second day of the second day, "drinking soup" is actually not drinking soup, but cooking some rice noodles and boiled some clear water eggs to eat. It turns out that every household will prepare a bowl of rice noodles, with two peeled eggs on it, and send them to families with elderly people in this family. It is really a respect for the elderly, because rice noodles mean longevity, and peeled eggs mean shelling and rebirth. Old people generally only accept rice noodles and one of the eggs, and the other egg is returned to the owner. If there are old people on both sides, both sides will send each other. From the second day of junior high school, people can pay New Year greetings to their relatives and friends. Especially the girl who got married years ago, must return to her parents' home on the second day of the second day. Moreover, they have to stay at their parents' home for a week, and those brothers, sisters and uncles will invite the newlyweds to their home for a meal in a certain order, which is called "inviting dinner". At this time, it is also a good opportunity for the groom to get familiar with her relatives. Generally speaking, New Year greetings can last until the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first lunar month.
The Chinese New Year is a time for people to communicate with each other, and the most important performance is the exchange of "courtesy". When you are a guest at a relative's house, you usually only eat two meals, one is called "soup" and the other is Chinese food. The former is the host's welcome for the guests who have just arrived far away. They serve wine and a few side dishes to let the guests sit at the bottom first. While enjoying the delicious food, everyone talked about their work and family, thus unconsciously reducing the fatigue of the guests on the way. In a short time, the host removed the dishes of side dishes, served more than a dozen good dishes at home, and started real Chinese food. When they left, they sent back some homemade or bought fruits, peanuts and the like, which enhanced mutual communication and feelings. On the fifteenth day of the first month, after the Lantern Festival, the festive atmosphere has gradually faded, because the new year has begun, and in order to fight for a better life, we have to work hard. After a "Spring Festival" break, people's tired body and mind are recuperated, which makes them more energetic to start their work and life in the new year.
It should be said that the Spring Festival in our hometown is not only a display of affection and friendship, but also a lubricant to enhance harmony between people, and it is also a way to educate future generations to respect the old and love the young, be kind to others and strive for progress. Through the Spring Festival, friends and relatives in different places will gather together to talk to each other about the gains and losses of the past year, * * * to share happiness and the sufferings of others, so that people will not feel lonely inside!
In the sound of firecrackers, we ushered in the biggest festival of China people-Spring Festival, and everyone was beaming, hanging red lanterns and pasting red Spring Festival couplets, and they were busy ...
The first day of the first month is another happy day.
I used to be the last person to get up, but today I won the first place because I really want to smell the smell of firecrackers. Strings of firecrackers are lit in people's hands, and the sound is really loud, splashing everywhere, as if to send every blessing to thousands of households. The sound of firecrackers is continuous, crackling and lively.
After the firecrackers, there is nothing interesting. Let's have breakfast and go out to play later!
After dinner, I invited some friends to play together. The firecrackers lit in the street produced beautiful flowers on the ground. They were very beautiful. The pocket money given by my parents was in my bag, not to mention how happy I was. Today's birds also come out to join in the fun, and probably they are also very happy.
The street is really a street, with everything to play and eat. Most of the people I saw were children. I took a look and counted the spicy food stalls as the best:
"I want a string of rice cakes!" Cried a fat child.
How about going somewhere else? In front of a stationery store stall, I stopped again. There are all kinds of fun things there: airplane models, binoculars, electric cars … all fun things. I find that the most popular things are those for fun.
In other places, I also saw some selling balloons, pistols, skipping rope, and some selling snacks, snacks and fruits, with everything to wear and eat. It's amazing.
After playing all morning, I'm going to visit relatives and friends in the afternoon to celebrate the New Year, which is undoubtedly a happy thing.
What a wonderful time today! It's a feast for the eyes, a feast for the mouth and a feast for the hands. The luckiest thing is those vendors, but business is booming today!
I sincerely hope that today's children all over the country will be happy and have no troubles in the new year, but don't be "tired of playing with things"!