Overview of the Spring Festival The Spring Festival is an ancient traditional festival in China, and it is also the most important festival in the whole year, so the customs of the Spring Festival are also varied. According to legend, Nian animals are afraid of red, fire and noise, so people have customs such as putting up Spring Festival couplets, setting off firecrackers and beating gongs and drums. The customs of different periods, regions and nationalities are different. Customs of the Spring Festival The Spring Festival is an ancient traditional festival in China, and it is also the most important festival in the whole year. How to celebrate this festival has formed some relatively fixed customs and habits in thousands of years of historical development, and many of them have been passed down to this day! There are many ancient customs, such as giving lucky money.

Spring Festival: In primitive society, there was a "La Worship" ceremony: after the autumn harvest, people had to pay homage to their ancestors, to reward the blessing of the gods and the shade of their ancestors, and to pray for another bumper harvest next year. Over time, it has become a custom. People have been celebrating the Spring Festival since Yao and Shun.

The Spring Festival is held at the beginning of the year, which is the first day of every year. In ancient times, the time of the beginning of the year was different. The first day of the first lunar month in Xia Dynasty, the first day of December in Shang Dynasty, the first day of November in Zhou Dynasty, and the first day of October in Qin Dynasty. When Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty re-established the first day of the first lunar month, he also adopted the "taichu calendar", which stipulated the first day of the first lunar month as New Year's Day, commonly known as "New Year". In addition, it is also called Zhengdan, Kainian, Kainian, Fangnian and Huanian, among which "New Year's Day" is the most common and the longest.

After the victory of the Revolution of 1911, the Nanjing Provisional Government stipulated that the Gregorian calendar should be adopted, and the first day of January of the Gregorian calendar was designated as New Year's Day. In this way, the Spring Festival has become the name of the first day of the first month. In fact, the name Spring Festival has existed since ancient times, and it refers to beginning of spring. Since folks called the first day of the first lunar month the Spring Festival, they no longer called beginning of spring the Spring Festival.

—— Aestheticism —— How to eat "Old Beijing" during the Spring Festival: Beijing folk song: "Candied melons offer sacrifices to the stove, and the New Year is coming". The first food to enter the festival is candied melons, Guandong sugar and other snacks used for "offering sacrifices to the stove". They are made of colloidal maltose, which is slightly sweet and sour. In times when life is not very rich, this is an excellent food. Moreover, there are candied melons and Guandong sugar at home, which indicates that the Spring Festival is not far away. Of course, "Kitchen God" doesn't eat fireworks, and this kind of "bribe" that hopes "Kitchen God" will say good things in heaven and keep peace in the lower world "naturally becomes the thing in children's mouths.

Old Beijingers pay special attention to "Chinese New Year", so they have: "Don't be greedy for children. After Laba, it will be the New Year. Laba porridge will be drunk for a few days. Twenty-three, twenty-three, candied melons will stick, twenty-four, sweeping the house, twenty-five, frying tofu, twenty-six, stewing mutton, twenty-seven, killing cocks, twenty-eight, making noodles, twenty-nine. Laba porridge, fried tofu, stewed mutton and so on listed in folk songs are all delicious foods in old Beijing during the Spring Festival. Today, these are commonplace, but in the fifties and sixties, you can only feast your eyes on the Chinese New Year.

During the Spring Festival, there are only the above kinds of foods, which are certainly not rich. For example, the cakes used to worship the gods and ancestors in ancient times, such as Honey Supply and Shaqima, are not only food for ethnic minorities such as Manchu in Beijing, but also essential food for people in Beijing. Some well-off Beijingers used to eat fish on New Year's Eve. Fish must be carp, originally in the name of offering sacrifices to gods, and later associated with the auspicious words of "auspicious celebration is more than enough". Fish is both a delicacy and a sacrifice.

As for jiaozi on New Year's Eve, jiaozi, a vegetarian stuffing, is used to worship God, while everyone eats meat stuffing. People who are not rich in life are stuffed with meat and vegetables. Even the poorest families will eat jiaozi's "procedures" during the Chinese New Year. In addition to the well-known delicacies such as jiaozi and rice cakes, people in "old Beijing" also try "Doo sauce"-a cold dish made of skin, dried bean curd, soybeans, green beans and watercress, which is amber in color and similar to "frozen meat". In addition, there is "mustard mound", which is a cold dish used to accompany wine and appetizer. People eat a lot of greasy food in festivals, which is easy to "make a fire" and "produce phlegm". These cold dishes can make up for this defect.

When all kinds of vegetarian dishes are ready, Beijingers also prepare sweets, dried fruits, melon seeds and "mixed fruits", which are today's assorted preserved fruits. At that time, these snacks were delicious food when people sat around the stove and died.

Today, almost all the offerings and traditional foods in the name of offering sacrifices to ancestors and gods have been preserved, but they are not so conspicuous. As for today's Spring Festival, the dining table can only be summarized by the word "abundance". What Sichuan-Shandong dishes and raw seafood will appear on the dinner table of ordinary people on New Year's Eve. People who talk about the "new school" will go to big restaurants to "grab a meal" to welcome the Spring Festival! Laba eats Laba porridge: On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the most important thing for every household is of course to boil Laba porridge. There are several different opinions about the origin of Laba porridge: some say it is to worship Shennong, some say it is to commemorate Yue Fei, and some say it was handed down from Zhu Yuanzhang. But the most widely circulated one is to commemorate the Buddha.

according to the Buddhist "pu Yao Jing", after Shakyamuni escaped from the palace and became a monk in Jiaxi mountain, he studied classics and spent six years in the mountains. When he finished his studies, it was the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in China, which is what ordinary Buddhists call "Sakyamuni's Day of Enlightenment". According to the "Karma Sutra", due to six years of asceticism, Sakyamuni has no time to take care of his personal food and clothing. He only eats some hemp and wheat every day, and he can't get enough food and clothing all the year round. By the time he graduated from school, he was already in rags and skinny. Tired, he walked down the Kadu Mountain, sat by the Nile and begged from the villagers. Cattle-herding women in the village helped milk with bowls of Meng, cooked it and gave it to Sakyamuni to eat, which made Sakyamuni's body recover quickly. After the prosperity of Buddhism, in order to commemorate this event, it was stipulated that this day was a day for the ancient Indian people to "fast monks" and give alms to the poor. After Buddhism was introduced into China, giving alms on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month gradually became the custom of cooking Laba porridge. In the Ming Dynasty, Chen Yaowen wrote "The Story of the Sky": "In the Song Dynasty, on the eighth day of December in Tokyo, seven treasures and five flavors of porridge were sent to the temples in the capital." The "seven treasures and five flavors porridge" mentioned here refers to "Laba porridge". Boiling "Laba porridge" in some Buddhist temples in China is a story to commemorate the relief of Sakyamuni by a cow herdsman on the Nile.

In addition to cooking Laba porridge to offer sacrifices to the Buddha, ordinary people also regard it as a gift from relatives, friends and neighbors.

Laba porridge was cooked with adzuki beans and glutinous rice in ancient times, and then the materials gradually increased. People in the Southern Song Dynasty carefully wrote "Old Wulin Stories" and said: "It is called Laba porridge to make porridge with walnuts, pine nuts, milk mushrooms, persimmon mushrooms and persimmon chestnuts." Up to now, people in the vast areas of Jiangnan, Northeast and Northwest China still keep the custom of eating Laba porridge.

Laba porridge is made of many ingredients, which are generally mixed with beans and rice such as kidney beans, peas, adzuki beans, cowpeas, mung beans, millet, rice, sorghum rice, etc., and boiled with dried fruits such as jujube and chestnuts. When you drink it, you can add seasonings such as brown sugar, white sugar, rose and sweet clover. For the exquisite ones, glutinous rice, coix seed rice, water chestnut rice, chicken head rice and lotus seed meat are mixed together to make porridge, and then covered with preserved fruit, lychee meat, longan meat, pine nuts, peach kernels, moss and red silk, and patterns are put out, which is really beautiful and delicious. Eating a bowl of steaming Laba porridge in winter is delicious and nutritious, and it can really increase happiness and longevity.

besides boiling laba porridge, there is a folk custom of soaking laba garlic. Also on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, I put the peeled garlic cloves into a jar, filled it with vinegar, sealed it, and kept it in a warm place until I had jiaozi on New Year's Eve. The soaked garlic cloves are green in color, like jade. They taste sour and slightly spicy, which really has a special flavor.

It is said that Laba will be poorer next year if he doesn't drink porridge. In the Qing Dynasty, Laba porridge drunk in the palace was cooked by lamas in the Lama Temple and paid tribute.

"Laba porridge for messengers" is a popular folk song: after Laba, creditors should pay their debts at home. Generally, on the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month, no one collects debts. King of people: In Shang Dynasty, there was a saying of Kitchen God. There is a record that "the stove is harmful" in Zhuangzi Dasheng. Sima Biao commented: "bun, kitchen god, dressed in red, looks like a beautiful woman." "Huai Nan Zi Ji Lun Xun" said: "Emperor Yan made a fire. Death is a stove. " Gao Youzhu said, "Emperor Yan and Shennong, with fire as their virtue, sacrificed their ancestors to the Kitchen God." At that time, it was a memorial to worship the ancestor Kitchen God. It is said that the kitchen god knows the good and evil in every household. Therefore, Lian said, "Heaven says good things, and when you return to the palace, you will be lucky." When will Kitchen Jun return to the palace? Probably before the Spring Festival. It is in the new year that we should bless this family with good luck and peace through the years. This is a good wish.

Kitchen God is also a Vulcan. Vulcan's name is Zhu Rong, or Huilu. Zhu Rong's legendary Zhu Rong, with fire, was named Chi Di, so later fire officials thought it was called. One is regarded as a fire official when he is an emperor beast, and later generations are respected as Vulcan. Vulcan, originally for the benefit of mankind, has also become synonymous with fire. Old Beijingers offer sacrifices to the kitchen stove king and the god of fire, because since ancient times, dry weather is a time of frequent fires around the Spring Festival. It is very necessary to be careful of fire.

In ancient times, on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, the court used antelope to offer sacrifices to stoves, and this ritual of offering sacrifices to stoves continued until the end of the Qing Dynasty. Folk sacrifice stoves use offerings such as candied melons, Guandong sugar and sugar cakes to sacrifice stoves; Sacrifice the horse of the kitchen king with clear water forage. According to legend, on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, the Kitchen King rides a horse to the Jade Emperor to report people's good and evil. At the end of the 23rd, every household will erect poles and hang lanterns in the courtyard, and the male host will bow down and wish to conceal evil and promote good. It is forbidden for women to be the chief priests, and women can only sweep the stoves in the inner room. After the sacrifice, take off the statue of Kitchen God and burn it together with the paper ingots. On this day, there are many firecrackers, commonly known as off-year holidays.

There is a saying in a Beijing proverb: "Laba porridge, which is a messenger, is a deadly kwantung candy, and it is a life-saving cooking cake", which means that Laba sends a message that the Spring Festival is coming soon. When the New Year is over, the creditors will force their debts, but the 23rd is the most critical time to force their debts, so it is a deadly kwantung candy. When they eat jiaozi at midnight on New Year's Eve, the general creditors will not come according to the rules.

Some poor families don't have enough to eat, so they can't afford to buy Guandong sugar to worship the stove. Therefore, there is a folk song in old Beijing that says, "The kitchen god, whose real name is Zhang, has a bowl of cold water with three sticks of incense. This year, the boy is poor, so he will eat Guandong sugar next year. "

In the past, there were many Kitchen King temples in Beijing, where every household offered the Kitchen King. Except for ethnic minorities, almost all Han people have the customs of king of people.

The Kitchen God is a deity worshipped by folk kitchen stoves, also known as Kitchen King, Kitchen King and Kitchen God. In order to express their gratitude to the inventor of fire, primitive people worship their ancestors every summer, which symbolizes fire and the stove also represents fire. In northern China, there is a custom of offering sacrifices to stoves with candy on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month.

As the saying goes, "Twenty-three, sweet melons stick, twenty-five, sweeping the dust". Sweeping dust is not only beneficial to environmental sanitation, but also beneficial to fire prevention, because if some combustible garbage is completely removed, a fire factor will be removed.

Twenty-four house cleaning: house cleaning, saying that "you can't let the old kitchen god carry the earth to heaven".

in the Tang dynasty, the wind of "sweeping the year" prevailed. According to Song and Wu Zimu's "Dream of Liang Lu", "December ends ... no matter how big or small, everyone sweeps the door, cleans the dust and filth, and cleans the family ... to pray for the safety of the new year." It has been passed down from generation to generation, forming the custom of sweeping houses before the Spring Festival. Even poor families with few people have to clean their houses. This is not only a preparation to meet the lower bound of the gods, but also an important move to eliminate filth, bad luck and poverty.

The old Beijing ballad says, "Twenty-three, sweet melons are sticky; Twenty-four, House Sweeping Day ... "In fact, people do not sweep houses on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, but after the 15th of the twelfth lunar month and before the sacrifice of the kitchen on the 23rd, it is a very troublesome but unavoidable thing to choose an auspicious day from the imperial calendar to sweep houses. The owner of a large house directs his servants to do it; Generally, the whole family, old and young, will move the indoor furniture and furnishings to the courtyard and wipe them clean, especially the copper work above must be brightened. For the interior, it is mainly to sweep away the tower ash and cobwebs on the ceiling of the corner, tear off the old New Year pictures on the wall, and paste the New Year pictures after painting or pasting; Tear off the old window grilles on the glass window, wipe them and stick new window grilles on New Year's Eve; In particular, Buddhist temples and ancestral temples should be carefully cleaned. Sacrificial vessels such as incense burners, wax sticks, flower tubes, sea lamp bowls and sacrificial bowls must be polished, and objects such as old couplets and hanging money before and after the Buddha must be removed and incinerated.

Generally, families only do it for half a day or one day, while households with more houses do it in different houses for three to five days.

After cleaning the house, people will also "choose a lucky day" to take a bath in the bathhouse or at home, shave their heads and have a haircut, which means to get rid of the old and welcome the new.

After cleaning the house, the whole family began to prepare for the New Year's Day, inviting wax paper yards and offerings, writing couplets, cutting window grilles, buying hanging money, New Year pictures and firecrackers ... to prepare for the New Year. Thirty years old: the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month is the New Year's Eve of the year.

In the past, most families in old Beijing provided shrines or statues all the year round, but they must provide them next year. There are various offerings, including fried pasta, moon cakes and snacks, apples and oranges, assorted preserved fruits, yellow and white rice cakes, and jiaozi steamed bread. In addition to offerings, there are incense burners, wax sticks and other providers on the altar, and futons are placed on the ground in front of the altar for use when you bow down.

It is said that from the night of the 31th to the early morning of the first day of the lunar new year, the gods will come down to inspect the good and evil on earth. Among these gods are the God of Wealth and the Land Lord. On the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, the Kitchen God, who said good things from heaven, also returned to the world at this time and continued to be his "head of the family". At this time, people should be respectful and cautious, and burn incense and kowtow. Please take care of your gods in the new year.

New Year's Eve is the most delicious time for old Beijingers. First, the whole family get together for a reunion dinner and enjoy the most abundant food in a year. Most of the dishes are meat such as stewed fish, stewed meat, stewed chicken, meatballs and braised pork, as well as fresh and refreshing cold dishes, such as spicy dishes made of turnips and red robes, as well as sweet and spicy cabbage and mustard mound. The staple food is mainly jiaozi, usually with mutton, cabbage or pork and leek as stuffing. When eating jiaozi, you should never forget to use Laba vinegar as seasoning. If it is off-year, New Year's Eve is on the 29th of the twelfth lunar month. The common people call this day "Thirty Years". Among all the festivals, the "31th" is the busiest and happiest day in old Beijing.

First, we should post Spring Festival couplets. Spring Festival couplets written in red paper should be posted on both sides of every household's street gate and house door, and horizontal comments should be posted on the lintel. Most of the contents of Spring Festival couplets are to increase happiness, longevity, fortune and treasure. Anyway, they are all auspicious words. Followed by the door-to-door god. The gatekeepers in old Beijing used Qin Shubao and Wei Chijingde from the Tang Dynasty, one with a white face and one with a black face, one with a left and one with a right commanding presence. It is said that exorcism is their specialty. Some households have to put up thousands of posters. Hanging money is also called hanging money. It is cut with red paper or colored paper and pasted on doors and windows. It is said that it can avoid poverty.

Everyone should be present at this dinner on New Year's Eve, and more auspicious words should be said during the dinner, which indicates that the future days will be harmonious, beautiful and round.

According to the custom of old Beijing, you can't sleep on New Year's Eve, so everyone should have a good night with him. This is called "Shounian". "Shounian" has two meanings. For older people, it means cherishing time on New Year's Eve. Young people keep their old age to prolong their parents' life.

In order to observe the New Year's Eve, there should be some entertainment activities. Old people gather together.