Lion dance and solar terms

Customs: Posting New Year greetings, eating New Year's Eve, observing the New Year, paying lucky money, offering sacrifices, holding temple fairs and dancing lions.

Origin: The Spring Festival evolved from praying for the New Year at the beginning of the year. In ancient times, people held sacrificial activities at the beginning of the new year after a year of farming, in order to pay homage to the gods and ancestors in heaven and earth and pray for a good year.

2. Lantern Festival

Customs: Enjoy lanterns, eat glutinous rice balls, solve riddles on the lanterns and set off fireworks.

Origin: The fifteenth day of the first month has been paid attention to in the Western Han Dynasty. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sacrificed "Taiyi" in Ganquan Palace in the first month, which was regarded by later generations as the first sacrifice to the gods on the fifteenth day of the first month. However, the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month is indeed a folk festival after the Han and Wei Dynasties. The custom of burning lanterns on the fifteenth day of the first month is related to the eastward spread of Buddhism.

3. Qingming

Customs: hiking, sweeping graves, offering sacrifices to ancestors, etc.

Origin: Tomb-Sweeping Day originated from the belief of ancient ancestors and the custom of spring sacrifice. It has both natural connotation and humanistic connotation. It is both a natural solar term and a traditional festival.

4. Dragon Boat Festival

Customs: grilled dragon boats, picked herbs, hung wormwood and calamus, worshipped ancestors, washed herbal water, ate zongzi, put kites, tied colorful silk thread, smoked Atractylodes rhizome and wore sachets.

Origin: Dragon Boat Festival originated from the worship of astronomical phenomena and evolved from the ancient dragon totem sacrifice.

5.tanabata

Custom: Worship seven sisters, pray, seek skillful art, sit and watch morning glory and weaver girl, pray for marriage, and store water on Tanabata.

Origin: The legend of Cowherd and Weaver Girl on Tanabata originated from people's worship of natural phenomena. According to legend, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl meet at the Magpie Bridge in the sky on the seventh day of July every year. Later, the folk further developed this story and gave it a beautiful love legend.

6. Chongyang

Customs: Climbing high to pray, enjoying chrysanthemums in autumn, wearing dogwood, offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors, feasting and longevity.

Origin: In the Book of Changes, "Nine" is defined as yang number, and the two yang numbers of "Nine Nine" are heavier, so it is called "Chongyang"; It is also called "Double Ninth Festival", because both the date and the month conform to nine. Returning to the truth of 1999, the ancients thought that 1999 Chongyang was an auspicious day.

7. Laboratory Animal Breeders Association

Custom: Boil Laba porridge, eat Laba garlic, sun-dry Laba tofu, cook Laba noodles, eat Laba ice and so on.

Origin: The word "Laba" originated in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, when it was called "Laba Festival". Originally a Buddhist festival, it has gradually become a household name through the evolution of several generations.

8. Winter solstice

Custom: In many places in northern China, it is a custom to eat jiaozi every winter to Sunday. Cantonese people eat barbecue and ginger rice on the solstice in winter. People in Hangzhou eat rice cakes on the solstice in winter. Some coastal areas in the south continue the traditional custom of ancestor worship.

Origin: The term refers to the winter solstice, that is, the solar calendar reaches 270, which is on the Gregorian calendar 65438+February 2 1-23. Winter solstice is one of the eight festivals in a year. In ancient times, there was a custom of "eight festivals" to worship the gods and ancestors.