What are the customs during the Spring Festival?

Spring Festival (nickname: Spring Festival, Lunar New Year, Lunar New Year, Lunar New Year, Spring Festival) is one of the four traditional festivals in China, and the date is set on the first day of the first lunar month every year.

Common Spring Festival customs include: preparing new year's goods, pasting New Year's red, offering sacrifices to stoves, removing dust, pasting Spring Festival couplets, hanging New Year's pictures, stick grilles, washing your hair and taking a bath, decorating lanterns, upside down pasting lucky characters, New Year's Eve, paying New Year's greetings, setting off firecrackers, giving out red envelopes, wearing new clothes, eating jiaozi, celebrating the New Year, dancing dragons, hanging lanterns, giving lucky money, eating jiaozi, opening doors and setting off firecrackers.

During the Spring Festival, there are different customs every day, and the customs in each region are also different. I think there are five customs worth mentioning in the Spring Festival. Let's take a look:

? One of the customs of the Spring Festival: Catch the big episode?

Catching the big episode is the highlight of the 27 th lunar month, and the pace of the New Year is getting closer and closer. People should buy all kinds of new year goods they need during the Spring Festival. In the past, when people went to the market on the 27th of the twelfth lunar month, they mainly bought couplets, sacrificial supplies, children's gifts and girls' headdresses, which were essential for the New Year and full of flavor. So in modern times, although it is convenient for us to buy all kinds of goods during the Spring Festival, we still need to prepare some necessary new year's goods in advance to avoid being in a hurry on New Year's Eve.

Catch the twenty-seventh episode of the twelfth lunar month. During the Spring Festival, although "going to the store to go to the market" also includes trading with second-hand goods markets and buying and selling surplus goods, it is more about buying and selling new year's goods, such as firecrackers, Spring Festival couplets, incense sticks, burning paper, various gifts for children and various headdresses for girls. All the items needed for the Spring Festival are being purchased, so the markets all over the country are very lively on this day.

? The second custom of Spring Festival: Bao jiaozi?

New Year's Eve dinner includes jiaozi. It is one of the most important contents of the folk New Year in northern China. In jiaozi on the 30th, because it is an important part of festivals, many rules and established customs are stipulated. These customs are designed to cater to the needs of the New Year atmosphere.

When wrapping jiaozi, people usually wrap Jin Ruyi, sugar, peanuts, dates and chestnuts into stuffing. Eat the best and sugar, life will be sweeter in the coming year, eat peanuts, live a long and healthy life, eat dates and chestnuts, and have a baby early.

There is also an interesting story about this custom in folklore: a long time ago, in a poor mountain village, there was a poor family who often ate the last meal without the next one. On New Year's Eve, there is no white flour and vegetables at home, and I am worried when I listen to the neighbors cutting vegetables. Helpless, I had to borrow rice noodles from relatives and friends. After mending the noodles, I made some miscellaneous vegetables, stuffed them into the stuffing, and wrapped jiaozi. Because the noodles are borrowed, the wrapped jiaozi is particularly precious. When placed, it is circled from the inside out, which is very neat and beautiful. Kitchen God, who just came back from heaven, was very happy after seeing it. There is a rich man in the same village, and his family is very rich. He is used to eating delicacies on weekdays and doesn't care about jiaozi at all. On New Year's Eve, stuffing is made of meat, eggs and other materials, wrapped into jiaozi and placed on the curtain. Jiaozi, a small material, tastes completely different after being cooked in the pot. Pork stuffing became a radish dish. And the poor family's jiaozi turned into a stuffed egg. It turned out that the chef was very dissatisfied with the attitude of the rich man's family, Bao jiaozi. In order to punish him, he secretly changed two jiaozi. The next day, it spread in the village. From then on, no matter how busy people are, 30-year-old jiaozi should be neatly arranged to win a "happy circle".

? The third custom of the Spring Festival: New Year greetings

Paying New Year's greetings is the oldest folk custom in China. During the Spring Festival, the activities of exchanging feelings between relatives are a way for people to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, and express their good wishes to each other. New Year's greetings refer to visiting relatives and friends on the first day of New Year's Day and greeting each other. Origin of the custom of paying New Year greetings: In ancient times, the original meaning of the word "New Year" was to pay New Year greetings to the elderly, including kowtowing to them, congratulating them on a happy New Year and greeting their lives. In case of friends and relatives of the same generation, you should also salute and congratulate. On the first day of the new year, people get up early, put on new clothes, go out to visit relatives and friends, and wish each other good luck in the coming year. There are many ways to pay New Year's greetings. Some are householders leading several people from house to house. Some colleagues invited several people to pay New Year greetings. Others get together to congratulate each other. This is called "group worship".

In the Song Dynasty, friends and relatives would greet each other, which was an early New Year card. In the Ming Dynasty, the design of New Year cards was more perfect and exquisite. Not only the sender's name and address are printed on the email, but also "Happy New Year" and greetings are written. With the development of the times, the custom of New Year greetings is constantly adding new contents and forms. Nowadays, people not only follow the old way of paying New Year greetings, but also begin to pay New Year greetings by SMS and telephone.

? The fourth custom of the Spring Festival: Step on "Chong"?

Before the Spring Festival approached, old Beijingers began to get busy, such as buying new year's goods and preparing to offer sacrifices to stoves. Among them, there is a very important and unique thing at home, which is to prepare sesame stalks and prepare to step on "special". Sesame is millet, with erect stems, round lower part, generally quadrangular upper part, hairy leaves and white flowers. After harvesting, threshed leaf stems, that is, sesame stems, are straight and crisp after drying.

At that time, farmers in the suburbs of Beijing took advantage of the slack season to carry a load of sesame stalks into the city to sell in the twelfth lunar month, just to meet the needs of this custom of stepping on "special". So in the streets, you can often hear the cry of "selling sesame stalks", and many people buy them.

"Precious" originally refers to the legendary ghosts or harmful ghosts. Here, because "broken" and "precious" are homophonic, and they are placed at the foot, which means that exorcism begins one year later, which is similar to the ancient intention of putting peach symbols at the door and hanging pine and cypress branches that can suppress evil. This is not only an "old example" to wish a peaceful and auspicious New Year, but also one of the things that children were most interested in at that time.

? The fifth custom of the Spring Festival: Eat roasted zygotes?

On the eleventh day of the first month, there is a custom of eating roasted zygotes in old Beijing. The ancients thought that "ten" was a beautiful number that was "perfect and repeated". Adding a "one" to ten means a new beginning, so the four days before the Lantern Festival are regarded as a time period of "worshipping the old".

There is a saying in old Beijing that "before the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month, before the fifth day of the first month, and after the fifth day of the first month, everyone can pay a New Year call". Those who failed to pay New Year greetings to relatives, friends and old friends in these days around New Year's Day for various reasons quickly "pay homage to their old age" without losing courtesy. The diet custom of this day is to eat zygote, which is homophonic with "harmony". Eating zygote symbolizes a harmonious and beautiful life.

The customs and activities of the Spring Festival are different in the north and south, but they are basically the same in one thing, that is, family reunion, visiting relatives and friends, visiting elders and so on. I hope we can remember these customs full of affection and good wishes and pass them on from generation to generation.