Is the winter solstice one of the traditional festivals in China?

The winter solstice, also known as the short solstice, the winter festival, the year of the year, worship winter, etc., both natural and humanistic connotations, is one of the twenty-four seasons of an important festival, but also a traditional Chinese folk festival. The winter solstice is one of the four seasons, is regarded as a big winter festival, in the ancient folk "winter solstice is as big as the year," said.

So the ancient people called the winter solstice "the year of the year" or "small year". The winter solstice customs vary from region to region and there are differences in the content or details of the customs. In some coastal areas of southern China, there are winter solstice ancestor worship, feasts and drinks; in northern China, there is the custom of eating dumplings on the winter solstice every year.

The winter solstice is the 22nd of the 24 solar terms. The "twenty-four solar terms" and the "twelve months build" is the basic content of the dry calendar, "twenty-four solar terms" originally to the Big Dipper seven stars handle rotation pointing to determine the cycle of the Big Dipper seven stars rotate, the The rotation of the seven stars of the Big Dipper has a close relationship with the twenty-four solar terms.

Ancient farming society in the people in the peaceful and happy after choosing a day to worship the gods and ancestors will have a variety of regular festivals, worship of the gods and ancestors of the abundance of tribute to the development of festivals feasts, but also the gradual formation of a number of agreed-upon ways of celebrating the so-called festivals and folklore.

Extended information:

In the north of China in many areas of the winter solstice every year, there is the custom of eating dumplings. According to legend, when Zhang Zhongjing, the sage of medicine, returned to his hometown, he saw the frozen people and used mutton and some cold-expelling herbs as well as dough, wrapped in the shape of an ear to make a kind of medicine called "cold-expelling Jiao Er Tang", which was given to the people to eat.

Later, every winter solstice, people will imitate do eat, formed a custom. Most of the northern part of China in this day to eat dumplings also because dumplings have the meaning of "eliminate cold", and to this day there are still folk "winter solstice not end of the dumpling bowl, frozen off the ear no one care" folk proverb.

Many places in the south of China will celebrate the winter solstice festival. Many areas along the southern coast have the traditional custom of sacrificing ancestors on the winter solstice. Households will be ancestral statues, tablets, etc. for the upper hall at home, placed on the table, set up incense burners, offerings and so on. Ancestor worship at the same time, some places are also sacrificed to the gods, land gods, bowing to the gods, in order to pray for the next year, the wind and rain, family and all things happy.