What is the solstice in winter? Do you have the custom of steaming winter there? How did you do that?

In the north, winter is more obvious, and winter solstice. It is called "Winter Festival", "Crossing Winter" and "Sub-year-old", and the heavy snow 15 days after the solar term is the winter solstice. In winter, the solstice has short days and long nights, and the straight line position of the sun just reaches the end of the earth's return to the south and back to the north. It is said that the winter solstice originated from ancient tools for offering sacrifices to gods. Zhou Li Chunqiu said: "On the solstice of winter, gods and ghosts are sacrificed to eliminate epidemics and famines." It is generally believed that the winter solstice begins, the days are getting longer and longer, and the sun is turning. This is an auspicious day. Therefore, the winter solstice was designated as the winter solstice festival in the Han Dynasty, and the ceremony to celebrate the festival was also held at the same time. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, this custom was very popular. At that time, people used to worship their parents and eat red beans to ward off evil spirits.

The Winter Solstice Festival was also very popular in the Song Dynasty, and its ceremony was second only to the "New Year". According to Meng Yuanshen's Dream of Tokyo, this festival is the most important festival in the capital during the winter solstice of 1 1 month. Although it is in the hands of the poor, it is easier to get new clothes, prepare food and drinks and enjoy ancestor worship in a year. Officials let go of robots to celebrate exchanges, just like the Chinese New Year. After the Qing dynasty, it gradually weakened, not grand. Although there was a grand ceremony, the emperor led hundreds of officials to the suburbs, and the folk celebration of the winter solstice was not as good as before. The solstice in winter is the beginning of counting nine, so people also call this day "counting nine" or "entering nine" Literati or scholars are used to drawing a "nine-year cold-dispelling map" on this day, which is called "cold-dispelling map" for short.

Scholars draw a bunch of plum blossoms on rice paper, with 998 1 petal on the branch, representing 8 1 day, and the petals are hollow. The so-called "upper petal cloud, lower petal eye, left wind and right wind in rain and snow." In order to record the 81-day rain and snow, plum blossoms were painted full with ink pen, and "nine" means that spring has come. Another nine calligraphy and paintings were selected and written together, each word was blank, one stroke a day, until 99 calligraphy and paintings were completed and the words were filled with "nine". In the past, people steamed more steamed buns in winter, which was called "steaming winter".

As a custom, steaming winter is rare now. According to the old man, steaming winter is to find wind when threshing and raising fields in the coming year, so there is a saying: "There is no steaming winter on the winter solstice, and there is no wind when raising fields." In the Republic of China, people not only enjoyed delicious food on this day, but also changed to the custom of worshipping their ancestors at night. After liberation, the custom of eliminating cold and steaming winter on the winter solstice almost disappeared. Few people know that there is such a thing as the winter solstice festival, and they don't know that there is such a thing as steaming winter to dispel the cold. This kind of thing can only be seen in books.