1. Spring Festival customs: sweeping dust
"On the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month, dust and sweep the house." According to "Lu Spring and Autumn" records, my country had Spring Festival dust sweeping in the Yao and Shun eras. customs. According to folklore: because "dust" and "chen" are homophonic, sweeping dust in the New Year means "removing the old and spreading the new", and its purpose is to sweep away all bad luck and bad luck. Every Spring Festival comes, every household has to clean the environment, wash all kinds of utensils, remove and wash bedding and curtains, sweep the Liulv courtyard, dust away dirt and cobwebs, and dredge open ditches and ditches. Everywhere is filled with the joyful atmosphere of doing hygiene and welcoming the new year cleanly.
2. Spring Festival customs: keeping the year old
Keeping the year old on New Year’s Eve is one of the most important annual customs. The custom of keeping the year old has been around for a long time. The earliest record can be found in the "Fengtu Zhi" of Zhouchu in the Western Jin Dynasty: On New Year's Eve, each person greets each other with gifts, which is called "giving the new year"; "Dividing the year old"; everyone stays up all night waiting for dawn, which is called "keeping the year old". Since the Han Dynasty, the transition time between the new and the old year has generally been at midnight.
3. Spring Festival customs: New Year greetings
On the first day of the new year, people got up early. Later, some upper-class figures and scholar-bureaucrats used various posts to congratulate each other, which later developed "New Year's greeting card".
4. Spring Festival customs: pasting Spring Festival couplets
Spring couplets are also called door pairs, spring posts, couplets, couplets, peach charms, etc. They depict the times with neat, dual, concise and exquisite words. Background, expressing good wishes, is a unique literary form in our country. Every Spring Festival, every household, whether in urban or rural areas, selects a red Spring Festival couplet and pastes it on the door to add a festive atmosphere to the festival. This custom began in the Song Dynasty and became popular in the Ming Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, the ideological and artistic quality of Spring Festival couplets had been greatly improved. Liang Zhangju’s Spring Festival Couplets monograph "Three Couples on the Threshold" has a detailed introduction to the origin of the couplets and the characteristics of various works. All discussed. There are many types of Spring Festival couplets. According to the place of use, they can be divided into door centers, frame pairs, horizontal drapes, spring strips, and squares, etc. The "door center" is affixed to the upper center of the door panel; the "frame pair" is affixed to the left and right door frames; the "horizontal stripe" is affixed to the crossbar of the door; the "spring strips" are affixed to the corresponding places according to different contents; "Dojin" is also called "door leaf", which is square and diamond-shaped, and is often posted on furniture and screen walls.
5. Spring Festival Customs: Window Decorations and "Blessings"
Among the people, people also like to paste various paper-cuts - window delicacies - on their windows. Window grilles not only enhance the festive atmosphere, but also integrate decoration, appreciation and practicality. Paper-cutting is a very popular folk art in my country and has been loved by people for thousands of years. Because it is mostly pasted on windows, it is also called "window flower". With its unique summary and exaggeration techniques, window grilles vividly express auspicious symbols and good wishes, decorating the festival with prosperity and splendor. While pasting Spring Festival couplets, some families will paste the word "福" in large and small sizes on their house doors, walls and lintels. Posting the word "福" during the Spring Festival is a long-standing folk custom in my country. The word "福" refers to blessing and luck, expressing people's yearning for a happy life and their wishes for a better future. In order to more fully reflect this yearning and wish, some people simply paste the word "福" upside down to express "happiness has arrived" and "blessing has arrived". Folks also use the word "Fu" to make various patterns with detailed drawings, such as longevity star, birthday peach, carp jumping over the dragon gate, good harvest, dragon and phoenix showing auspiciousness, etc.