How did the ancients celebrate New Year’s Day?

How the ancients celebrated New Year's Day is as follows:

New Year's Day in the Northern Song Dynasty - a seven-day holiday

In the Northern Song Dynasty, New Year's Day was the beginning of the year, also known as Yuan Day, Yuan Zheng, Sui Chao, etc. On this day, both dignitaries and ordinary people will celebrate grandly.

New Year's Day in the Ming Dynasty - Sending greeting cards

Chinese people have liked to write letters since ancient times and use words to express their emotions. During the Ming Dynasty, someone used two-inch wide and three-inch long paper to print beautiful and exquisite plum blossom patterns on it, and neatly wrote their names and addresses. On "New Year's Day", everyone's face is filled with joy, they greet each other and give their carefully made greeting cards to relatives and friends.

The custom of sending greeting cards spread to the Qing Dynasty. People preferred to use red cardboard to make greeting cards. They also treasured the New Year's cards in simple and fragrant exquisite brocade boxes, and then sent them with sincere emotions. Give a gift to the person to whom it is intended to express your best wishes and warm feelings.

Three major ways to celebrate New Year's Day

Method 1: In ancient times, all dynasties held celebration ceremonies and other activities on New Year's Day, such as offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors, and writing Spring Festival couplets on doors. , writing blessing characters, dancing dragon lanterns, and folk have gradually formed entertainment and celebration activities such as worshiping gods and Buddhas, worshiping ancestors, posting Spring Festival couplets, setting off firecrackers, staying up late, having reunion dinners, and numerous "social fires". Xin Lan, a poet of the Jin Dynasty, once wrote a poem "Yuanzheng": "On the Qingming Festival of Yuanzheng, Jiaqing begins. Xian plays the wine cup for thousands of years, and Xiao Datong is happy." It describes the New Year's Day celebrations.

Method 2: The whole of China and even the whole world knows that many countries have designated New Year’s Day as a legal holiday and have a holiday on New Year’s Day. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, New Year's Day was also designated as a legal holiday and a day off.

Method 3: Nowadays, activities organized by groups are more common, such as New Year’s Day parties, hanging slogans celebrating New Year’s Day, or holding group activities, etc. In the past, there were organizations that played gongs and drums and performed folk dances in groups. Now you can still see it on TV documentaries. Today, with the development of science and technology, it has evolved into a gala party or something like that. In recent years, there have been more tours, parties and other programs. Anyway, there are not many traditions on New Year's Day. It is a day off and you can do whatever you want. Even New Year's Day only means a day off for the younger generation.

Method 4: The traditional Chinese way of celebrating lies with the people, especially in rural areas. Every New Year's Day, every household will set off firecrackers, kill chickens and geese, and worship the gods of various places, then the family will reunite and have a meal together. As for a more serious way of celebrating, I haven’t seen it yet.