Two days before the Chinese New Year, each family will send representatives to the nearby market to buy the last new year's goods, such as firecrackers, candles, incense couplets, paintings of door gods and so on. Of course, if any family has someone who is good at calligraphy, the couplets will be directly under his control. The paintings of Spring Festival couplets and door gods are posted on the Spring Festival, both for a prosperous and festive occasion.
The most important thing is the Spring Festival, which has been prepared for so long, and finally "Chinese New Year", the highlight is the New Year's Eve. At four or five o'clock in the afternoon, people began to set off firecrackers to eat New Year's Eve. The sound of firecrackers adds infinite excitement and festive atmosphere to the festival. In a short time, colorful fireworks and magnificent firecrackers were actually set off. As in other places, the family sat at the table and tasted those delicious dishes. Everyone raised their glasses to express their good wishes to their families. The difference is that we don't eat jiaozi for the New Year like most areas in northern China. We just cook a hearty meal and don't eat it all, which means "more than a year". Before eating, you must put chopsticks on the set rice bowl, and pour a few drops of tea into each bowl. The youngest person in the family will call: Grandpa, Grandma, grandparents go home for the New Year (the called people should all be dead), then put down the tea in each bowl and invite the oldest person in the family to sit on the table before everyone can move chopsticks. Although these processes seem a little troublesome, they show respect for ancestors and filial piety to elders. They unconsciously provide us with a stage to teach us and our children how to be human. In the process of talking and laughing, everyone enjoyed the most abundant New Year's Eve dinner. Later, as usual, adults will give lucky money to the elderly and children, and let the children put the lucky money under their pillows to pray for peace for one year.
On the first day of New Year's Day, it is a day to worship Guanyin. On this day, the whole family can only eat vegetarian food, such as tofu, cabbage and radish. And they should be vegetarian for every meal, which means that crops are growing well in the new year. Don't pull weeds in the farmland. After breakfast, boys and girls are often ready to go shopping in the city to buy clothes, hats, shoes and socks, while kind men and women go to the local Buddhist temple to burn incense and pray for visas, so there are quite a few pedestrians on this day, which often leads to traffic jams. However, people will never visit relatives and friends and pay a New Year call to relatives on this day. On the second day of the second day, "drinking soup" is actually not drinking soup, but cooking rice noodles and boiled eggs. It turns out that every household will prepare a bowl of rice noodles with two peeled eggs on it and send them to this family with elderly people. It is really a respect for the elderly, because rice noodles represent longevity and peeling eggs represents rebirth. Old people usually only accept rice noodles and one of the eggs, and return the other egg to the owner. If there are old people on both sides, both sides will send each other. From the second day of junior high school, people can pay New Year greetings to their relatives and friends. Especially for girls who got married years ago, they must go back to their parents' homes on the second day of the second year. Moreover, they will stay at their parents' home for a week, and those brothers, sisters and uncles will invite the newlyweds to their home for a meal in a certain order, which is called "inviting them to dinner". At this time, it is also a good opportunity for the groom to get familiar with his relatives. Generally speaking, New Year greetings can last until the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first lunar month.
Chinese New Year is a time for people to communicate with each other, and the most important performance is the exchange of "courtesy". When you are a guest at a relative's house, you usually only eat two meals, one is called "soup" and the other is called Chinese food. The former is the host's welcome to the guests from afar. They will provide wine and some side dishes and let the guests sit at the bottom first. While enjoying the delicious food, everyone talked about their work and family, thus unconsciously reducing the fatigue of the guests on the way. In a short time, the host removed the side dishes, served more than a dozen good dishes at home, and started real Chinese food. When they left, they sent back some homemade or bought fruits and peanuts, which enhanced their communication and feelings. On the fifteenth day of the first month, after the Lantern Festival, the festive atmosphere has gradually faded, because a new year has begun. In order to strive for a better life, we should work hard. After a "Spring Festival" break, people's tired body and mind have been recuperated, which makes them more energetic to start their work and life in the new year.
It should be said that the Spring Festival in our hometown is not only a display of family and friendship, but also a lubricant to enhance harmony between people, and it is also a way to educate future generations to respect the old and love the young, be kind to others and strive for progress. Through the Spring Festival, friends and relatives from different places will get together, talk to each other about the gains and losses of the past year, share happiness and the sufferings of others, so that people will not feel lonely inside!