What are the origins and customs of the Spring Festival?

The Spring Festival is the first festival of the Chinese nation, with a long history and rich cultural connotations. The Spring Festival embodies China people's ethical feelings, life consciousness, aesthetic taste and religious feelings. The Spring Festival is a concentrated display of national cultural traditions, and people are also performing national festival culture while enjoying the Spring Festival culture. It is in the special time and space setting of festivals that national culture can be passed down and carried forward.

Why is the Lunar New Year in China on the first day of the first month?

Our people regard the coming cold winter and the sun in early spring as the beginning of the New Year, which can be traced back to ancient La Worship. It is said that "La Worship" was originally the year-end custom of "offering sacrifices to ghosts and gods" and "gathering all things for fun" in Shennong era. Its main content is to thank the words of the Hundred Gods last year, and to pray for good weather and abundant crops in the coming year, accompanied by activities to drive away epidemics and disasters. The ancient "hunting" and "wax" are also interlinked. During the winter break, people will hold large-scale sacrificial activities and use hunted wild animals as sacrifices. "The Book of Rites and the Moon Order" says: "It's the moon, full of steam. The son of heaven begged for food in the next year of Tianzong, cut the ancestral hall at the commune and the gate, and sacrificed Lazu five times, so that the peasants could rest in peace. " At that time, some people regarded La Worship as the New Year.

The New Year custom in the pre-Qin period was in its infancy. The Book of Songs in July records the festival customs at the turn of the old year and the new year in the Western Zhou Dynasty. When winter comes, people go back indoors, block the windows facing north, make a fire indoors and smoke rats to prepare for the New Year. The so-called "peeling dates in August, harvesting rice in October, spring wine for this purpose, attracting eyebrows and longevity" means that people make wine after harvest, celebrate the harvest and honor the elderly. The so-called "friends enjoy wine, kill lambs every day, and go to court and say that there is no limit to their longevity" means that people give wine and lambs to the gods to thank God for his blessings and blessings in the past year. At this time, because different countries adopt different calendars, there is no unified day for celebrations. This is the embryonic form of the New Year custom during the slack season in winter.

The custom of the New Year was formed in the Han Dynasty. After the great social turmoil at the end of the Warring States Period, the policy of "rest and recuperation" was implemented in the early Western Han Dynasty, social production was restored and developed, social order was relatively stable, people's interest in life was high, and a series of holiday customs were gradually formed. After the implementation of the taichu calendar Law, the calendar has been stable for a long time, and the first day of the first month was designated as the date of the New Year. In this way, the rewards, sacrifices and celebrations originally held in different days in late winter and early spring in various regions are gradually unified in the first day of the first lunar month. With the development of society, from the Han Dynasty to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the custom of celebrating the New Year on the first day of the first month became more and more intense. Activities such as burning firecrackers, changing peach charms, drinking Tu Su wine, observing the New Year sun and enjoying lanterns all appeared, and the celebration date became longer and longer, gradually evolving into the first major festival in China.

The custom of the New Year began in the Tang Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty is an era of ideological and cultural prosperity and frequent cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries. The custom of the New Year is gradually liberated from the mysterious atmosphere of praying for newspapers, superstition and exile, and transformed into an entertaining and ceremonial festival. The focus of celebrating the New Year has shifted from offering sacrifices to gods to entertaining people, and to people's own entertainment and enjoying life. Therefore, it can be said that only after the Tang Dynasty did the New Year really become a "festival" celebrated by the whole world and hundreds of millions of people.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the custom of New Year began to transform, and the etiquette and entertainment gradually strengthened. People pay New Year greetings to each other in the New Year, and dignitaries send each other name cards or pay New Year greetings at home. Ordinary people also pay attention to "reciprocity", giving gifts and greetings to each other in the New Year. In addition, the entertainment of the Spring Festival stalls has been further strengthened. During the New Year, all kinds of entertainment activities, such as playing with lions, dragon dancing, performing, telling stories, walking on stilts, boating and so on, are colorful and dazzling. Beijingers visit Changdian, Guangzhou people visit the flower market, Suzhou people listen to the bells of Hanshan Temple, and Shanghai people visit the City God Temple. All kinds of entertainment activities are ingenious and dazzling.

According to the custom of our country, the Spring Festival in a broad sense refers to the period from the La Worship on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month or the sacrificial stove on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month to the Lantern Festival on the 15th of the first lunar month, while the Spring Festival in a narrow sense refers to the first day of the first lunar month. During this period, there were many activities and many customs were full of ethnic colors.

The diet during the Spring Festival is also extremely rich, with all kinds of delicious food. According to the custom, the eating habits in the south and the north of China are different. Southerners like sweets. On the morning of the Spring Festival, they eat sugar lotus seeds, sugar rice cakes and sugar jiaozi, which means "every year is sweet to the end", while northerners like to eat jiaozi.

The traditional folk customs of the Spring Festival have pinned people's good wishes and longings. In the past days, no matter how poor you are, you should try your best to put on new clothes during the Spring Festival. I hope your family will be happy and safe in the new year, and I hope you will have a bumper harvest in agriculture and a happy life.

China New Year custom with a history of more than 2,000 years prevails in Chixian and China, permeates everyone's life and casts the soul of every Chinese descendant. During the Chinese New Year, it has become a common habit for China people to go home at the end of the Lunar New Year to reunite with their relatives and pay homage to their ancestors.