The Spring Festival is approaching, and people are beginning to make various preparations for the celebration of the Spring Festival. The Spring Festival is a time to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, and to pray for an auspicious new year. The activities during the Spring Festival are rich and colorful, mainly including pasting Spring Festival couplets, hanging lanterns, setting off firecrackers, wearing new clothes, watching the Spring Festival Gala, eating New Year's dinner, keeping the New Year, and paying New Year's greetings, and so on, which have given birth to the unique charm of Chinese traditional culture.
1. Paste Spring Festival couplets. Sticking Spring Festival couplets is one of the traditional customs of our country
On the occasion of the Spring Festival, every household will post Spring Festival couplets. It is said that the folk custom of sticking Spring Festival couplets originated in the Song Dynasty and became popular in the Ming Dynasty. The earliest prototype of the Spring Festival couplets is the "peach charm", which is used to drive away filth and ward off evil spirits, and gradually evolved into the current Spring Festival couplets. Chinese attach great importance to the Spring Festival Lian, which is rich in content and witty words, symbolizing people's wishes and hopes for the New Year. At the same time, people will also paste the word "Fu" on the door of the room, and I simply paste the word "Fu" upside down, indicating that "happiness has arrived, blessing has arrived", which conveys people's yearning and wishes for a better life. However, if someone in the family dies, it is not allowed to post Spring Festival couplets for three years.
2. Hang lanterns. Lanterns are closely connected to Chinese life, and lanterns are hung everywhere at the gate or in the living room. The lanterns hung during the Spring Festival are full of meaning and enthusiasm, and they are all auspicious patterns and words of blessing. Hanging lanterns originated in the Western Han Dynasty, at first hanging lanterns were used for lighting, in traditional Chinese culture, it is believed that red lanterns have the auspicious meaning of good luck. Every Spring Festival, people will hang lanterns in front of the door to symbolize the prosperity of life, creating a festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival. The color of the lantern is generally red, which means to remove evil and eliminate disasters, and some people will continue to take it off until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, which is very popular and loved by people.
3. Set off firecrackers. When the door is opened in the New Year, the first thing people do is to set off firecrackers, and greet the old and welcome the new with the sound of crackling firecrackers. After the sound of firecrackers, the brocade is all over the ground, the street is full of rui, jubilant, and the saying is "full of red". The custom of setting off firecrackers has a history of more than 2,000 years in China. When the New Year's bell rings, the whole land of China, the sound of firecrackers resounded in the sky, and some places still lit "prosperous fire" in the courtyard, implying prosperity. But now due to environmental protection factors, most cities prohibit fireworks, so electronic firecrackers came into being to replace firecrackers, imitate the sound and glitter of fireworks, and increase the festival atmosphere and sense of ceremony.
4. Wear new clothes. Parents usually prepare a new dress for their children to wear, which represents the renewal of everything, and the adults and children of every household have changed into new clothes, removing the old and welcoming the new, and celebrating the new year, so as to show the new atmosphere and new look of the new year.
5. Watch the Spring Festival Gala. Every year, the Spring Festival Gala is held on the evening of Chinese New Year's Eve to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Since 1983, the variety show Spring Festival Gala held by CCTV has become a "new folk customs and new culture" for Chinese, and is a must-see cultural feast on Chinese New Year's Eve every year. After the reunion dinner, everyone will sit in front of the TV, combined with the New Year's celebration, everyone has been watching the Spring Festival Gala, waiting for the moment of saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new, until when the bell rings at zero o'clock, each family will set off fireworks and firecrackers to welcome the arrival of the new year.
6. Eat New Year's dinner. The Chinese New Year dinner, also known as the reunion dinner, is a family dinner around a table. The annual New Year's dinner is the highlight of the Spring Festival, which is not only colorful, but also has many meanings. In some places, there are fish, which means that there is more than enough every year; In some places, you can eat glutinous rice balls to express your good wishes for a happy New Year's reunion; In some places, rice cakes are eaten, which means that everything is good every year. Eating dumplings during the Spring Festival is an indispensable custom, and it has the implication of "making children in the New Year" for good luck. Some people will wrap coins in dumplings, and whoever eats them first will have good luck in the new year.
7. Give New Year's money. New Year's money originated earlier in China, but it was popular in the Ming and Qing dynasties. New Year's money is given to the children by the elders, and the younger generations pay New Year's greetings to the elders, and the elders will give the children New Year's money. After the New Year's dinner, the elders will give the prepared red envelopes to the younger ones, encouraging the children to study hard in the new year and make progress every day. Some parents wait for their children to fall asleep and put them under their pillows, reflecting the love of the elders for the younger generations.
8. New Year's greetings. New Year's greetings are a traditional Chinese folk custom, is a way for people to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, and express good wishes to each other. The Chinese New Year's greeting can be traced back to the Han Dynasty and was very popular after the Tang and Song dynasties. Nowadays, New Year's greetings take more diverse forms. Forms such as SMS New Year's greetings, **New Year's greetings, WeChat New Year's greetings and **New Year's greetings are becoming more and more common, no matter how the form changes, the theme of caring for relatives and friends and expressing good wishes is eternal and does not become. New Year's greetings are to bow to the elders, and the New Year's greetings are to congratulate each other, and when they meet each other, they say: "Gong Xi Fa Cai", "Step by step", etc., without too much etiquette.