The taste of childhood: What we miss is just the carefree life of childhood

Text/Taibai’s Watermelon

It’s the Spring Festival again. People around me are grabbing train tickets home and preparing various new year’s goods while sighing: “The New Year is getting better and better. It’s getting less and less interesting. I was so happy during the New Year when I was a kid.”

But is it really the rich material life that makes the New Year’s taste less and less interesting? In my opinion, not necessarily so.

We miss the taste of our childhood, but what we miss is the carefreeness of our childhood when we were ignorant of the world.

The happy years in my memory are the happiness and happiness of laughing amidst the sound of firecrackers:

It is the prank of picking up and throwing firecrackers all over the village with a group of friends. ; It’s the little naughty boy who helped his father put up Spring Festival couplets, but was covered in paste and was laughed at and scolded by his mother;

After grandma killed the chicken, we picked up chicken feathers all over the floor and compared with our friends who had more feather shuttlecocks. A beautiful little pride; after my mother killed the fish, we secretly got the fish bladders to make toys, and compared the sizes everywhere, stomping around with our little feet;

At family and friends gatherings, we were always in the crowd with our brothers and sisters. They are jumping in and out, playing with each other happily; it is the croquettes, fried fish, and various New Year snacks that have been awaited for a long time, hot and delicious;

It is the whole family During the general cleaning, we tidy up while making trouble for our mother; it is the happiness and reunion of a family neatly dressed, wearing the most beautiful clothes and going to the photo studio;

It is enjoyed when visiting relatives with adults The treatment of distinguished guests is the new clothes that my aunt never fails to give every year; it is our "following" every time when our parents go to the market to prepare New Year's goods; it is the candied haws that has been drooling for a long time in the market;

It is a During the annual New Year pig killing, it is a little funny thing to cover your ears while sticking your little head out from among the adults to peek at the blood-soaked scene; it is the whole village gathering in the cold wind of winter night to watch an outdoor movie at the end of the village. , the joy of circus performance;

It is the solemnity and dignity of the whole family when they worship their ancestors, the awe of the Kitchen God with the first bowl of dumplings and the hope for a better life; it is the feeling of "going out to see happiness" and "going out safely" "The peace and blessings in the couplet;

It's the sip of white wine secretly stolen from my father's wine glass at the New Year's Eve dinner; it's the joy and satisfaction of seeing the red envelope when I kowtow to my grandparents in the morning of the first day of the new year. .

It’s the night of New Year’s Eve, and the family huddles under a quilt, eating melon seeds and watching the warmth of the Spring Festival Gala; it’s early in the morning, getting out of the warm quilt, and playing the first song of the New Year The good expectations of the fireworks;

It is also the first meal of the New Year that you must eat "vegetarian dumplings". Make sure you don't eat meat and avoid being "drowsy". A small rule is not to sweep the floor on the first day of the new year, fear "Little superstitions" that sweep away New Year blessings.

These memories are all about pure laughter, carefree eating and drinking, and pure and happy expectations for the "New Year". But when I was a child, I was a bit precocious. Behind this happiness, I was a little afraid of the New Year.

At that time, my father was still the captain of the production team. The team always owed money from supply and marketing cooperatives, agricultural machinery cooperatives, grain stations and other departments, from fertilizers to tractors on credit, to grain seeds, and the cost of digging wells in the field. ; Every year at the end of the year, all the debt collectors come to the house.

Even though it is not my family’s debt, I always feel a sense of shame and am embarrassed to go to my friend’s house, so I have to close the door rudely and hide in the room; or run to the fields in the wild. Staying bored.

At that time, I was always unhappy with my father’s work. I was often aggressive with him, and always felt that he was not doing his best. Every time during the Spring Festival, debt collectors would come to the house and make noises several times about this.

In my memory, my mother is always busy in the kitchen. As the daughter-in-law of a large family, my mother took on all the work in the kitchen.

Starting from the 20th day of the twelfth lunar month, we start to make (boil) lard, fried meatballs, burnt leaves and other snacks, as well as steamed buns, steamed buns; not to mention the constant visits of guests, prepare a decent and A classy banquet. After the guests left, the table was left in a mess, making it even more difficult to clean up.

In my memory, my mother was always the last one to serve the New Year’s Eve dinner, and she had to keep an eye on the kitchen stove during the meal.

By that time, the hot dishes had already gone cold. After finishing the meal in a hurry, we still had to clean up the restaurant and kitchen, and then prepare the dough and make dumplings.

A New Year's Eve dinner is the last day of the year that my mother keeps busy from morning to night. It is the "delicious food" in our mouths and the leftovers in mother's bowl.

Since I started doing housework, I helped my mother in the kitchen. But every winter, she doesn't want me to get cold water. All I can do is help her light the fire.

So, to this day, I always feel that the water in the kitchen is much cooler than when I was a child, but my mother at that time blocked all the cold air for me.

Just like at that time, we were looking forward to visiting relatives and friends, but our parents were worried about giving gifts; we were thinking about killing pigs and eating meat, but the adults unfortunately couldn't exchange for more money.

What makes us happy is the carefreeness of not knowing the world, but behind the smiles of our parents, we hide the hardships of life. They just saved up all the happiness of the year until the Chinese New Year, and briefly put the hard work of the year behind them in that short period of time.

Why are the Chinese New Year in my memories all about laughter? It’s just childhood? Being innocent and simple means that we don’t have to think about life or responsibilities, we just need to enjoy everything our parents give us.

Nowadays, we also have to take on the responsibilities of life. We have to shoulder the burden of housewives, consider the dishes for the New Year’s Eve dinner, household cleaning, and the interpersonal relationships between relatives and colleagues. Parents and children prepare gifts.

There are so many things to prepare for the Spring Festival. How can we simply enjoy the happiness brought by the New Year? But in the eyes of our children, the Chinese New Year is still the family reunion they long for and look forward to.

Nowadays, children’s Chinese New Year is like a carousel in the amusement park, a family cartoon in the cinema, a family trip, extra time for playing games, and a gift carefully prepared for them by their parents. , is the joy of going to distant places to see grandparents and grandparents.

Our roles have begun to change, from enjoyment in childhood to contribution today, and it is our children who will take over our happy New Year.

Year after year, life continues to reincarnate. Each generation has its own way of celebrating the New Year, and the strong flavor of the New Year has never disappeared. What makes us feel that the flavor of the New Year disappears is just growth and responsibility.

Thousands of years have passed, even though the way of celebrating the New Year has changed a lot, and many ancient customs may have disappeared. However, as long as the Chinese people’s longing for reunion is still there, as long as relatives and loved ones If the love between them is still there, the taste of the new year will not change.