Nicknames and elegant names of winter solstice

The solstice of winter is also called Winter Festival, Short Festival, Long Festival, Happy Winter, Fat Winter, Happy Winter, Asian New Year, Walking Long Festival, Tofu Festival and Yiyang Festival.

Winter solstice is an important solar term in the China lunar calendar, and it is also a traditional festival of the Chinese nation. As early as more than 2,500 years ago in the Spring and Autumn Period, China had observed the sun with the earth, and determined the winter solstice, which was the earliest of the 24 solar terms, and the time was between 0 and 23 in Gregorian calendar 65438+February 265438.

On the solstice in winter, the direct sunlight reaches the southernmost point of the year, almost directly on the tropic of Capricorn. On this day, the northern hemisphere gets the least sunshine, 50% less than the southern hemisphere. The days in the northern hemisphere are the shortest, and the farther north they are, the shorter they are. After the winter solstice, the stars in the night sky are completely replaced by the winter stars. From today, they will enter the ninth.

At this time, the southern hemisphere is in a hot summer. More generally, there is a custom of eating jiaozi from winter solstice in northern China. In the south, people eat jiaozi, and the winter solstice habit is called Jiujiu. Mutton soup was popular that day, which means to drive away the cold. Dietary customs vary from place to place, but eating jiaozi is the most common.

Winter solstice custom

1, draw nine

The so-called Figure 9 is actually a graph to calculate the warm date from winter to the following spring. In the Ming Dynasty, "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of the Imperial Capital" contained: "From winter to the sun, draw a plum flower, one in eighty petals. Dye one petal a day, and 99 petals will come out, then the spring will be deep, saying that 99 will eliminate the cold. " There are three patterns in "99 Cold Map", namely characters, circles and plum blossoms.

Step 2 brew rice wine

Traditional Gusu people will drink winter wine on the night of winter solstice, and the winter wine will be brewed with glutinous rice or yellow rice and osmanthus.

Step 3 eat glutinous rice balls

Eating dumplings is a traditional custom from winter solstice, especially in the south of the Yangtze River. "Tangyuan" is an indispensable food in winter solstice, and "round" means "reunion" and "perfection". Eating glutinous rice balls on the solstice in winter is also called "the solstice in winter". There is a folk saying that "eating glutinous rice balls makes you one year older".