What are the traditional Chinese New Year customs in Baoding?

Baoding attaches great importance to the New Year and thinks it is a time for family reunion. Therefore, the custom of celebrating the New Year in Baoding is closely related to "reunion" and "gathering". Before New Year's Eve, every household will sweep the house, clean the house, clean the glass and so on, and sweep away the haze for a year. During the Spring Festival this year, our family cleaned the house inside and out. In the park on the street, everywhere you see, there will be lanterns and red lanterns symbolizing good luck.

On New Year's Eve, people who eat New Year's Eve, work or study outside will come back to see their families even if they leave Wan Li. On New Year's Eve, there will be no shortage of jiaozi, and the family will gather around the table to pack jiaozi. Of course, many people now choose to go to restaurants for New Year's Eve dinner, but in Baoding, most people still cook at home. Going home all the way, I just hope to have a reunion dinner at home. Always lose the warmth of home outside.

Besides the New Year's Eve, the most important thing is the first breakfast, so after dinner, the family will sit around the TV and watch the Spring Festival Gala while wrapping jiaozi. In order not to leave the two meanings of "reunion" and "Fu Bao", both meals are jiaozi. Moreover, we used to eat these two jiaozi meals at home, never go out to eat, and never go to relatives and friends' homes to eat. Because of this, Baoding people attach great importance to these two meals, giving them strong and profound folk cultural significance. According to custom, not only must this meal be eaten at home, but there are no outsiders, and even the married daughter can't go back to her parents' house to eat. In addition to the meaning of reunion, Jiaozi also said that she would guarantee the happiness of the next year. So one or two jiaozi will wrap dates, peanuts and so on, and they will say that whoever eats them is blessed. At twelve o'clock, the family will clap the door together to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new.

On the first day of New Year's Day, Baoding people will have the first meal of the New Year with their families, and then go door to door to pay New Year's greetings, bringing good luck to everyone.

Jiaozi is very important in Baoding's Spring Festival custom. Not only do you eat jiaozi on New Year's Eve and the first day of the first month, but you also eat jiaozi on the seventh and fifteenth day of the first month, so as to wish the new year disease-free and all the best.

On the fifteenth day of the first month, Baoding people will look at lanterns and put them on, and the family will get together again, praying for a harmonious reunion of the moon family in the coming year as in the fifteenth.

Throughout the first month, when relatives and family members walk around each other, dancing lions and stilts, children's eyes will always find those interesting and delicious goals. Although the food in the north of China is similar to a great extent, people in other places can't enjoy Baoding candied haws, candied noodles and roasted sweet potatoes.