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 connotation. 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. People are enjoying the Spring Festival culture while performing the national 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 winter and budding spring as the beginning of the new year, and its origin can be traced back to ancient La Worship. It is said that "La Worship" was originally a 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 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. In the next year, the emperor of heaven cut the ancestral hall at the commune and the gate, and worshipped the ancestors 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 of the Western Zhou Dynasty. When winter comes, people go back indoors, block the windows facing north, make a fire indoors and smoke mice 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 bumper harvest and honor the elderly. The so-called "friends enjoy wine, kill lambs every day, go to court and say that their life is endless" means that people give wine and lambs to the gods to thank God for his blessing and blessing over the past year. At that time, because different countries adopted different calendars, there was no unified celebration day. This is the embryonic form of the New Year custom during the slack season in winter.

The custom of Chinese 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 years of the 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 was stable for a long time, and the first day of the first month was established as the date of the New Year. In this way, the awards, sacrifices and celebrations held in different regions on different days in late winter and early spring are gradually unified on 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 fierce. Activities such as burning firecrackers, changing peach charms, drinking Tu Su wine, watching 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 at home and abroad. 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 Chinese New Year has shifted from offering sacrifices to entertaining people, 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, New Year customs began to transform, and etiquette and entertainment were gradually strengthened. In the New Year, people pay New Year greetings to each other, dignitaries send famous cards to each other, or pay homage at home. Ordinary people also pay attention to "reciprocity", giving gifts during the New Year and exchanging greetings. In addition, the entertainment of the Spring Festival is further strengthened. During the New Year, all kinds of entertainment activities, such as playing with lions, dancing dragons, 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 unique 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, and 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.

During the Spring Festival, the diet is also extremely rich, with all kinds of delicious food. According to custom, the eating habits in northern and southern 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 "sweet at the end of each year", while northerners like to eat jiaozi.

The traditional folk customs of the Spring Festival have pinned people's good wishes and yearning. In the old society, no matter how poor you are, you should try to put on new clothes during the Spring Festival, hoping that your family will be happy and safe in the new year, with a bumper harvest in agriculture and a happy life.

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