What are the two most important customs during the Spring Festival?

The two most important customs in the Spring Festival are observing the New Year and paying New Year greetings.

observing new year's eve

observing new year's eve is one of the most important annual customs, and the custom of observing new year's eve has a long history. The earliest record was found in the "Local Records" in the Western Jin Dynasty: on New Year's Eve, all parties gave gifts, which was called "giving the year back"; Wine and food are invited, which is called "don't be old"; It is called "dividing the age" when the young and the old gather to drink and wish a complete song; Everyone stays up all night, waiting for the morning, which is called "keeping the old age".

"One night is even two years old, and the evening shift is divided into two days". On New Year's Eve, the whole family get together, eat New Year's Eve, light candles or oil lamps, sit around the stove and chat, wait for the time to say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new year, and keep vigil all night, which symbolizes driving away all evil diseases and epidemics and looking forward to good luck and good luck in the new year. This custom gradually became popular. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, wrote a poem "Shounian": "Cold resigns from winter snow, and warmth brings spring breeze". To this day, people are used to keeping the new year's eve and welcoming the new year.

In ancient times, observing the old age had two meanings: the old people's observing the old age means "resigning from the old age", which means cherishing time; Young people keep their age to prolong the life of their parents. Since the Han dynasty, the time when the old and the new years alternate is generally at midnight.

Happy New Year

On the first day of the New Year, people get up early, put on their most beautiful clothes, dress up neatly, go out to visit relatives and friends, and wish each other a happy New Year. There are many ways to pay New Year's greetings, some of which are led by the same clan leader to pay New Year's greetings door to door. Some colleagues invite several people to pay New Year greetings; There are also people who get together to congratulate each other, which is called "group worship". Because it took time and effort to pay a New Year call at home, some elites and scholars later used stickers to congratulate each other, thus developing the later "new year card".

During the Spring Festival, the younger generation should first pay New Year greetings to their elders, wishing them a long and healthy life. The elders can distribute the lucky money prepared in advance to the younger generation. It is said that the lucky money can suppress evil spirits, because "old" and "precious" are homophonic, and the younger generation can spend one year safely with the lucky money. There are two kinds of lucky money, one is to thread colored rope into a dragon shape and put it at the foot of the bed, which is recorded in Yanjing Year; The other is the most common, that is, parents wrap the money distributed to their children in red paper. The lucky money can be given in public after the younger generation pays New Year's greetings, or it can be secretly put under the child's pillow by parents when the child falls asleep on New Year's Eve. It is still popular for elders to distribute lucky money to younger generations.