Since coming to the city, I always feel that the New Year has become more and more boring, without the strong anticipation of the hour, those exciting rituals are gradually fading, and the New Year is almost no different from ordinary days.
I haven't celebrated the New Year in my hometown in the countryside of southwest Lu for more than 30 years, and I don't know if it's still the taste of my childhood.
People in the rural areas of southwest Lu say well: "It is a year when you enter the wax month", "but the second day of February is a year". This time it will take two months to make the year. In fact, the New Year in our hearts when we were children is the time from Chinese New Year's Eve to the first day of the new year.
Now let's rummage through the memories of Chinese New Year's Eve and New Year's Day when I was a child:
When I get up early on Chinese New Year's Eve, the first thing is to post the Spring Festival.
Only by pasting the Spring Festival couplets can there be the appearance and atmosphere of the New Year. Paste the Spring Festival couplets, and then block the door with a piece of wood at the gate, the old man at home said that it was blocking the family's wealth and could not let it run outside.
I was considered a literate person in our village at that time, last century.
In the seventies and eighties, there were still many people in the rural areas of southwest Shandong who were illiterate, and they didn't know which of the Spring Festival couplets was the last sentence and which was the next sentence, and they didn't know whether to stick to the left or the right. After I finished pasting my Spring Festival couplets, a neighbor came to me and asked me to see how to paste their Spring Festival couplets.
In fact, I only knew that "left is up", and the upper link should be posted on the left side of the door, but I don't know if it was the left side I was facing or the left side of my door, and sometimes it was a blind command, anyway, few people in the countryside could understand it, and I fooled people for several years.
There are funerals at home for only three years, the first day of the new year can neither go out to pay New Year's greetings, nor accept other people's New Year's greetings, this kind of people's doors are pasted with white paper or straw paper to write the Spring Festival couplets, some of them have no words on it, and they will not enter the door on the first day of the new year.
After pasting the Spring Festival, the family began to prepare dumplings and prepare for the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner. The family gathered around the board at home, rolling the skin, making dumplings, wrapping dumplings, and wrapping the amount of dumplings for several days in the morning, densely placed on the pot made of sorghum straw, and it was cold, and it couldn't be broken if it was placed in the house for a few days. People with average conditions sometimes prepare two kinds of filling, one is vegan, most of them are made of radish, the other is made with meat, and most of them are prepared with cabbage and pork. Those who eat cabbage meat on the first day of the Lunar New Year will eat vegetarian food after the second day of the Lunar New Year.
When it was almost dark in the afternoon, the family began to prepare the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner. No matter how poor the family is, they have to make a few dishes on Chinese New Year's Eve to celebrate the New Year and reunite with their families.
At that time, because my father was working outside, our family conditions were slightly better, and at the end of the year, we were able to slaughter a sheep, and we could make several appetizers just when the sheep went into the water: mixed with mutton liver, mixed with mutton tripe, mixed with mutton lungs, and mixed with sheep's heart. Others also have mixed cabbage heart, boiled peanuts and other small cold dishes, are blind and, hot dishes generally have stewed frozen tofu, steamed small crispy meat, etc., stir-fried vegetables are generally very few, mainly the rural earthen stove fire is slow, stir-fry is troublesome and occupy the pot.
Wine is also a must, mostly with home-grown dried sweet potatoes to go to Shanxian County in exchange for the old white dry wine, the wine is strong, a smell of earthy.
As night fell, firecrackers sounded, the Chinese New Year's Eve we were looking forward to arrived, the family sat around and began to eat and drink, and the adults were short, looking back on the past and looking forward to the future. Chinese New Year's Eve is a hurdle in the eyes of hometown people, a watershed between the old and the new, the past and today, the bad things have passed, and all that is to be ushered in is auspicious and wishful. The children smiled happily, ate violently for a while and ran out, put a few firecrackers on the street and went crazy for a while, and then went around to taste other people's Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, drink other people's old white dry, and fainted in the middle of the night.
The first day of the new year is early, whoever gets up early and who has a good time, just after midnight, some people get up and put dumplings. Then until the sky is bright, the sound of firecrackers has been continuous, far away, near, more than one night, this is the climax of the New Year.
It feels like just falling asleep, being pulled out of the bed by adults, the boy takes the firecracker and picks it up with a bamboo pole and waits, the girl goes to the stove to light a fire and boil water, and waits for the water in the pot to boil, and shouts out in the kitchen: Dumplings, firecrackers! Then there was a crackling.
After the dumplings are cooked, they are served out bowl by bowl, not by themselves first, but by sending them out first. One is to send a bowl to each of the elders close to the family, and send it to the old man's bed all the way, and those who have not woken up should also be called up to try it; The second is to go to the livestock pen to send a few dumplings to the livestock raised at home to thank it for its hard work in the past year.
Originally, I always thought that animals only ate grass, but I didn't expect them to eat dumplings too.
After eating dumplings, our family will form a New Year's greeting team, led by an elderly uncle, dozens of large and small, all over the street to go out to pay New Year's greetings. First of all, the elders and elders of the family, and then the relatives and friends of the village who have a certain relationship with our family. Our village is large, and it often takes a noon to come around.
New Year's greetings in our village are generally like this: there are elderly people at home, sitting at home waiting, and those who are not in good health are sitting in the bed. When the New Year's greetings came, they first asked the old man: How many bowls of dumplings have you eaten? Is the body solid? Is the amount of food okay? Then came a pleasantry. The old man here will also ask: How are you big, how is your mother's health?
When I met the New Year's greeting team of other families on the street, everyone greeted each other: Have you eaten dumplings?
When I was a child, we didn't kowtow to the New Year, and I don't know what happened now.
After noon on the first day of the new year, the new year seems to be far away.
After the excitement is loneliness, which is also the most melancholy time for us, listening to the gradually fading sound of firecrackers, always thinking, the next year is still far away.
Celebrate the New Year in peace and auspiciousness