The Spring Festival is like a grand banquet, which comes at the same time and place as scheduled. The people attending the banquet are none other than family members.
When I was a child, I looked forward to the Spring Festival most, because I could have new clothes to wear and meat to eat, and I didn't have to worry about being scolded for playing around, let alone tangled up in complicated housework.
Now the Spring Festival has gradually lost its original traditional flavor. Most people in the city choose to buy all kinds of finished products or go to restaurants for dinner, and few people are willing to cook a reunion dinner by themselves.
I vaguely remember being busy for a long time before the Chinese New Year when I was a child. Especially when the twelfth lunar month is approaching, people are planning to kill Nianzhu back and forth. Killing pigs is a unique custom in the south. People who have been busy for a year will slaughter pigs that have been kept for a year or more before the arrival of the new year. Some of them will be used for curing bacon and stuffing sausages, and some will be used to entertain the surrounding villagers and their relatives. This is what people often call "killing pig rice".
Eating "killing pig rice" in the south is also exquisite. Before killing pigs, the host family will invite the most respected old people in the village, followed by the villagers and their relatives in the same village. In my impression, what I like best is the "first course" cooked by my mother. Because my mother always says that I have bad lungs and need to eat more blood, my mother's cooking is especially suitable for my taste. You may eat more when you kill pigs all year round.
My parents spent little time with me since I was a child, and I learned to stand on my own feet from middle school. I will clean the dust at home with my sister in the twelfth lunar month. According to the older generation, the whole year is over, and for greater prosperity and happiness in the coming year, all the dust in the house is cleaned up. Every time I sweep the dust, I always move the kitchen utensils and chairs in the living room out of the courtyard dam and wash them clean.
As long as I can remember, my parents didn't go home until almost the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month. At that time, what I was looking forward to most was my father's return. He always buys some fruits in the county fruit wholesale market, keeps them at home and gives them to our children during the Spring Festival. At that time, I thought it was really good to celebrate the New Year. The lively atmosphere always makes me feel particularly happy, so I followed my mother with something like water-milled dumplings, and my brother followed my father to post Spring Festival couplets in front of the door. The Spring Festival couplets at home were written by my sister who was still studying in a normal school at that time, because she studied kindergarten teachers. My sister has won prizes for both hard and soft pens, and even I envy her.
On the afternoon of New Year's Eve, my mother will start preparing the ingredients for the reunion dinner, most of which are fish. My father and brother are often called greedy cats by my grandmother and mother. I watched my mother cooking while watching the hot air around the stove. Fish and pork are mainly fried, on the one hand, to welcome guests, on the other hand, to facilitate storage. On another stove, the pig's ears, tail and tongue are cooked in salt water in the pot ... Calculate, there are almost several dishes on the New Year's Eve. Often before the New Year's Eve, our brothers and sisters have eaten around the stove.
After the reunion dinner, I began to be busy again, which has been the case for almost several years. After the reunion dinner, we began to arrange the stuffing of dumplings on the morning of New Year's Day. Because my family didn't like sweet dumplings very much, my mother and I chopped some green peppers or red peppers, fried tofu and shredded potatoes into minced meat to make dumplings. It took about an hour before and after, and the Spring Festival Evening started almost after the meat was cut. After washing our hands, we went to watch the Spring Festival Gala with our family.
In an instant, my father was old and my mother's hair was gray. My sister is a monk, and the big and small things at home are mainly me and my mother. My grandmother passed away in September. We haven't lived in the small courtyard for a long time, and we can hardly find a warm shadow in this city. Fortunately, my family is around. Although the Spring Festival will pass as usual, after several years together, I finally found an excuse for my parents to have a rest.
There is plenty of sunshine outside the window, which is rare in recent years near the Spring Festival. Looking at the returning wanderer sitting in the sun and chatting leisurely with his family about melon seeds, a warm current unconsciously rises in his heart. Such a day, in the traditional bones of China people, is a kind of eternal concern and the idea of rushing home. Such a festival is warm and happy after all.