Traditional Chinese Festival - Spring Festival Every year on the first day of the first lunar month is the New Year of the Chinese lunar calendar.
Among Chinese traditional festivals, this is the most important and lively festival.
Because the Lunar New Year is celebrated at the end of winter and the beginning of spring, people also call this festival "Spring Festival".
Chinese people have many traditional customs during the Spring Festival.
Starting from the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, people begin to prepare for the New Year.
During this period, every household has to do a general cleaning, buy New Year's goods, put up window grilles, hang New Year pictures, write Spring Festival couplets, steam rice cakes, prepare various foods, and prepare to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year.
The eve of the Spring Festival is called "New Year's Eve".
New Year's Eve is a time for family reunion.
The whole family sits together, eats a sumptuous New Year's Eve dinner, talks and laughs until dawn, this is called staying up late.
As soon as the bell rings at midnight on New Year's Eve, people still eat dumplings.
In ancient times, zero o'clock was called "Zi Shi". Zi Shi on New Year's Eve is the time when the old and new years turn over. People eat dumplings at this time, which means "Geng Sui Jiao Zi".
This is also the origin of the name "dumplings".
After New Year's Eve, it's the first day of the Lunar New Year.
Starting from the first day of the Lunar New Year, people visit relatives, see friends and pay New Year greetings to each other.
New Year greetings are an important custom during the Spring Festival.
When paying New Year greetings, everyone should say some auspicious words to wish happiness and health.
Spring Festival custom - setting off firecrackers. When the New Year's bell rings at midnight, the sound of firecrackers echoes across the entire land of China.
In this "three yuan" moment of "the yuan of the year, the yuan of the month, and the yuan of the time", some places still build a "vigorous fire" in the courtyard to show that the energy is strong and prosperous.
Around the blazing fire, the children set off firecrackers and jumped happily. At this time, there were bright lights inside the house, brilliant sparks in front of the court, and loud noises outside, pushing the lively atmosphere of New Year's Eve to the climax.
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The sound of firecrackers is a symbol of saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new, and an expression of festive mood.
Business family.
Setting off firecrackers has another meaning: they set off firecrackers on New Year's Eve to make a lot of money in the new year.
However, according to old customs, you should be the first to honor the God of Wealth, and the last to set off firecrackers.
Legend has it that if you want to make a fortune, the firecrackers should sound until the end to be considered sincere.
In the old days, when the Wealth Gate opened at midnight during the Spring Festival, people would send gifts to the God of Wealth. Holding a piece of paper printed on the door, the God of Wealth would shout: "Here comes the God of Wealth!" At this time, the owner of the house, in order to express his welcome,
The God of Wealth will give the reward to the visitor, and of course he will inevitably say some auspicious words when giving it to the God of Wealth.
For example: "The gold and silver treasures are rolling in"!
"There are a pair of golden lions on the left and a pair of golden phoenixes on the right"!
And so on and so on.
Another way is to dress up as the God of Wealth, wearing a red robe, a gauze hat, a fake beard, and a yellow bag for collecting money, followed by a few gongs and drums, going from house to house.
Distribute statues of the God of Wealth in order to collect rewards.
Every time he comes to someone's door, he sings: "The left compartment is full of gold and silver, and the right side is full of treasures." A lot of auspicious words are uttered, until the owner happily takes the red paper statue of the God of Wealth.
, gave them some money, and these people who pretended to be the God of Wealth, thanked them repeatedly, beat hard for a while, and moved to another house amidst the sound of gongs and drums.
The first thing everyone does after setting off firecrackers and returning home is to worship heaven and earth, welcome gods, and offer sacrifices to ancestors.
In ancient times, this kind of custom was very popular.
Due to the different etiquette and customs in different places, the forms of ancestor worship are also different. Some go to the wild to visit their ancestors' tombs, some go to the ancestral hall to worship their ancestors, and most of them place the ancestor's tablets in the main hall in sequence at home, display the offerings, and then the worshipers press the long
The younger ones offer incense and kneel down in order.
After paying homage to their ancestors, southerners check the auspicious direction of the year recorded in the almanac, light lanterns and torches, carry pots of wine, offer incense and blast firecrackers, and open doors to go out to welcome the God of Joy, which is called "chutianfang" or "travel". Zhejiang
It's called "Chu Xun", and in Shanghai it's called "Dou Xi Shen Fang".
This custom is to seek good luck and pray for the gods to bless everything smoothly in the year.
Staying up all night on New Year's Eve means staying up all night.
It's night, and the housewives are busy hanging lanterns, posting Spring Festival couplets, cutting window grilles, and pasting New Year pictures. They decorate the house with red and green flowers, adding a rich atmosphere to the festival.
Perhaps the thing that children look forward to most is New Year’s money.
New Year's money is given by the elders to the younger ones. In some families, after the New Year's Eve dinner, everyone sits at the table and is not allowed to leave. When everyone has finished eating, the elders give it to the younger ones and encourage their children and grandchildren to make the best of it in the new year.
Learn to make progress and be a good person.
In some homes, parents wait for their children to fall asleep and put them under their pillows at night. In other homes, children gather in the main hall, shout Happy New Year to grandparents, parents, and mom, kneel down in line, and then reach out for red envelopes.
They even went to the grandparents' bedroom and ran to the edge of the bed together, shouting: "New Year's money, New Year's money!" The old man didn't think it was lively enough, so he pretended to be stingy, went from bargaining to besieging and groping, and finally dug out the ancestor's red envelope.
After everyone looted everything, they dispersed.
The old man was overjoyed when he saw this scene, thinking it was a good sign that everything would go well in the new year.
People's traditional concept is that they always like to seek more good luck during the Chinese New Year and hope that everything will go well. There are many old customs in this.
For example, there is a custom in various places that prohibits the use of brooms. It is believed that using a broom in the New Year will sweep away luck and wealth, making it difficult to have good luck in the new year.
If you must sweep the floor, you must sweep from the outside to the inside.
In order to make this custom popular, the first day of the first lunar month is also designated as the "Broom Birthday".
You should not scold your children during the New Year, and you must pay special attention to what you say.