Chinese festival

The eighth day of the twelfth lunar month

People eat "Laba porridge" for breakfast on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Porridge is made of millet and persimmon blocks. It tastes sweet and fragrant. The peasant woman should make porridge before the sun comes out and put it on the south wall, saying, "Laba porridge should be made early and put on the south wall, and chickens will not push my valley." There is still a saying among the people that "eating Laba porridge will have a good harvest in the coming year". There is also a saying in the north that Laba garlic is brewed. The method is to soak garlic cloves with rice vinegar on Laba day, add a little honey or sugar, and wait until the first month to eat flat food.

Twenty-third of the twelfth lunar month.

As the saying goes, "On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, the kitchen god goes to heaven", and this day is called "kitchen sacrifice day". Every year, people will "invite" a new image of the kitchen king (can't say "buy") to replace the old image of the kitchen king, which is smoky for 365 days a year. Most of the statues of Kitchen God are also printed with the calendar of this year, which reads the words "Oriental chefs are in charge", "God of human supervision" and "head of the family" to show the status of Kitchen God. On both sides, there are couplets of "Heaven says yes, the lower bound is safe", wishing the whole family peace. There is a saying that "officials, three people, four boatmen and five", that is, the government holds sacrifices on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, ordinary people hold them on the 24th, and government boats hold them on the 25th. Sending stoves is usually held at dusk. The family went to the kitchen first, set the table, incense the kitchen god in the shrine on the kitchen wall, and present honeydew melons made of caramel and flour. The god horse (paper horse made of bamboo) ridden by the kitchen god is also equipped with fragrant fried beans, clear water and animal feed. For a slightly more delicate family, a bowl of glutinous rice steamed lotus seed eight-treasure rice will be more satisfying. Sacrificing caramel to Kitchen God is to make his old man's mouth sweet. In some places, every parent should bake honeydew melons in front of the stove first, and then put them on the mouths of the kitchen god and grandma. While painting, he said, "Say more good things and don't say bad things." This is to block the kitchen god's mouth with sugar and tell him not to speak ill. After people coated the mouth of the Kitchen God with sugar, they took off their idols and ascended to heaven with paper and cigarettes. In some places, sesame stalks and pine branches are piled in the yard at night, and then the statue of the kitchen god, which has been enshrined for a year, is taken out of the shrine and burned on the fire with paper horses and forage. The courtyard was brightly lit, and at this time, the family kowtowed around the fire, burning and praying: It's twenty-third this year, and I'm going to send the kitchen ruler to the Western Heaven. With strong horses and forage, you will arrive safely. Melon is sweet and sweet. Please speak kindly to the Jade Emperor. At the last minute, every family set up poles, hung lanterns and set off firecrackers in the yard. Every man bowed down, hoping to send the kitchen god to heaven with words to suppress evil and promote good, and enlighten the jade emperor on the good and evil of the Qin Dynasty for a year. Women could not pay homage, but cleaned the kitchen stove in the back room and lit lamps to worship silently.

Twenty-four twelfth lunar month

Clean the house twenty-four According to folklore, the Kitchen God is the commander-in-chief of the Emperor of Heaven and is responsible for inspecting the merits and demerits of his family. Anyone who does this should make a mark on the wall and report to heaven on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month at the end of the year. After receiving the order from the Emperor of Heaven, Lu Yiwu will punish the Hui people with heavenly soldiers according to the marks on the wall. In order to eliminate hidden dangers, people immediately began to clean the house the day after sending the kitchen god, forming the custom of "sweeping the house 24 times"

Twenty-five twelfth lunar month

Twenty-five grinding bean curd. On that day, people ground the soaked soybeans, rubbed off the residues through baskets, cooked them into pieces, fished them out and put them into a sieve, forming a backlog. After that, tofu was cut into small pieces and kept in salt water for consumption during the Spring Festival.

twelfth month of the lunar year

26 pieces of meat. On that day, there were many meat shelves in the market, and the villagers slaughtered pigs and sheep in cauldrons. Those who cut meat and measure wealth are prepared by rich households until the fifteenth day of the first month; The poor are going to the fifth day of the first month.

December 27th.

Twenty-seven steamed to eat. It is something that both the poor and the rich have to do, and it is also one of the characteristics of Chinese New Year. According to the size of the population and the number of guests, each family should steam enough to eat until the fifteenth day of the first month, at least to eat the number of "broken five". Shaving your head should be at twenty-seven, "twenty-seven, fine shaving; Twenty-eight, shave a fool. "

the 28th of the twelfth lunar month

Please write couplets on the 28th. Some farmers use flowers at home to express their wishes. In addition, please ask the goalkeeper on the 6 th. The door gods are mostly Qin Qiong, Jingde, Daguo Guan Gong, and Deng Ke, the fifth son. And most of them are stamped. Sticker pays attention to "poor sign (horizontal seam) and rich pair", that is, the lintel paper should be small and the pair paper should be fat. Write a bucket of squares on diamond paper with the word "Fu" written on it, and then write a vertical line "Go out to see happiness", "welcome happiness" or "celebrate the Spring Festival" and stick it on the door or wall. The trees in the yard are labeled with Spring Scenery in the Courtyard, the stone mill is labeled with White Tiger Auspicious, the stone mill is labeled with Dragon Auspicious, the car is labeled with Travel Thousands of Miles a Day, the barn is labeled with Mimai Man Cang, the table is labeled with "Getting more money every day", the wardrobe is labeled with "Clothes are full" and the bedside is labeled with "Good health". At the same time, all kinds of tablets are written in new ways, except the kitchen is written in green paper (to avoid fire), and the rest are written in red paper. Inside and out, there are red lights, and it is good luck.

the 29th of the twelfth lunar month

Sprinkle wax and leave on the 29th. That night, dozens of people, led by neighboring villages, were carrying lanterns, beating drums, patting cymbals and holding incense sticks. They light candles and burn incense foils in temples in various villages in order to worship God, exorcise evil spirits and deliver the gospel. People in the village gathered in the holy land, waiting for the arrival of the evangelist team. Send village after village, the fields are brightly lit.

30 December

The ceremony of welcoming God is called "receiving God", and the kitchen god is called "receiving kitchen". Generally, it is New Year's Eve to pick up the kitchen, and the ceremony is much simpler. At that time, just put on a new stove lamp and burn incense in front of the stove niche. The ceremony of receiving gods was held at the table of heaven and earth, presided over by the oldest person in the family. Because immortals live in different directions of heaven, the lower bound naturally comes in different directions. As for who to meet and where to come from, we should check the "constitution book" in advance, then lead the whole family to hold incense in the yard and follow their instructions to meet the gods. For example, Xin Weinian's "Constitution Book" states that "God of Wealth is due east, God of Wealth is due south, you God is northeast, West God is southwest, and Tai Sui God is southwest". After kowtowing in the direction, stand still until the incense is exhausted, and then kowtow. Finally, take down the fragrant roots, idols and ingots, and put them into the money and grain basins already prepared in the yard for burning. When burning, pine branches and sesame stalks burn together. When the gods were closed, firecrackers exploded and the atmosphere was extremely strong. After receiving the gods, sesame stalks are spread from the street gate to the door of the house, and people walk on them, making a noise, which is called "stepping on the old" or "stepping on the treasure". Family worship is the first major event after receiving God. First, kowtow to the idols of ancestors, and then kowtow according to their age. Since then, the elders will give the younger generation "lucky money" as usual.

Door bolt. On the thirtieth night, people used to put a peach branch on the threshold of the gate. If there are no peaches, use other sticks to prevent "wild ghosts" from entering the house. 30 pinch the kernel out of the pot. Knead the kernels and flatten the vegetables, and stir-fry them when they are out of the pot. These two tasks are the most tense and arduous work on the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month. On that day, from the morning, all the women in the family began to work together, making stuffing and mixing noodles. After stuffing and kneading dough, they gathered around the kang and kneaded the dough. Packed flat food should be enough for 30 nights and the first day of junior high school. On the evening of the 30th, every household will send lanterns made of paper, which will be connected to the pillars and sent to the grave for all-night lighting, so that ancestors can celebrate the New Year with others. Squeezing flat vegetables has been busy until about 5 pm. After the flat food is wrapped, you should first cook a pot and fish it into small plates, two for each plate. Housewives will burn incense and paper at home and pray for their ancestors: "Eat first if you have something to say, so as to bless the family and prosper." "Another man at home carries a tray to the grave to worship ancestors, and each grave puts a small plate and lights a cannon to kowtow. After these things are done, they start to fry. Everything that needs oiling should be fried. Crispy meat, meatballs, sliced meat (for ribs) and vegetables should be fried in the pot, but you should take some from the first pot and put it in the stove so that the kitchen god can come back to eat on the first day of May. Of course, if the twelfth lunar month is small, the activity of this day will be on the 29th.

Endure it for a year. Also known as "shou sui". According to folklore, thirty nights, as long as you have perseverance, you will wait until God's daughter opens a worse door to bless the world. If you go to bed early, you won't be happy. People have good wishes. Every year on the 30th night of the twelfth lunar month, the whole family chats endlessly, taking this opportunity to enjoy family happiness. Housewives should also set up incense tables to offer sacrifices, hold candles all night and burn incense five times. It is forbidden to talk loudly at night, so as not to disturb the gods; It is forbidden to open the cabinet to avoid absconding with the money; It is forbidden to take a wooden comb in the mirror to avoid seeing "ghosts"; It is forbidden to see knives and scissors, so as not to break the house; It is forbidden to sweep the floor to avoid the outflow of gold and silver; It is forbidden to pour urinals, so as not to blaspheme. If you throw away the leftovers for 30 nights, it's called dinner next year. It is not only a good sign to throw away the leftovers early on the first day of the New Year.

Set a table in heaven and earth: this is a temporary table, specially designed for New Year's Eve. Generally, there is no big Buddhist temple house, and special attention is paid to the heaven and earth, because there are few sacrifices to the Buddha at ordinary times, and the Buddha is rewarded once at the end of the year. In addition, this table is mainly used to pick up the gods. The content of heaven and earth table is different from that of perennial Buddhist temples. Most of its idols are temporary except hanging money, incense sticks, five sacrifices and big sacrifices, such as "Percent", which is a woodcut idol album; Eighteen Buddha Gods in the Three Realms of Heaven and Earth is a complete classic printed in color, with large yellow fringed paper woodcut. Fu Lushou Samsung photo, etc. Some of the above images are burned out after receiving god, such as "percentage" Others will not be burned until the fifth day or even the Lantern Festival.

The position of the table is not uniform. If the room is spacious, you can put it inside. If there is no land at home, you can put it in the yard. Legend has it that this night is the time when the gods in heaven are in the lower world, so the people have this custom of receiving gods.

Sacrificing ancestors is also one of the contents of the New Year's Eve. If there is an ancestral temple at home, the ceremony will be much more grand. If there is no ancestral temple, you should also take out the gods (or memorial tablets) and relics and set up an altar in the west wall of the house to worship your ancestors. Most Han people make fish tanks for ancestor worship, while southerners living in Beijing pay more attention to ancestor worship. Use eight bowls of big dishes, put hot pot in the middle, and put cups and chopsticks according to the spiritual position. Manchu ancestors used peach cakes, hibiscus cakes, apples, vegetable wax and sandalwood. Mongolian flag-bearer fried yellow wheat with butter, fried it with incense when withdrawing offerings, and ate it with sugar. Not forgetting ancestors is a traditional virtue, so it seems that it should not belong to superstition. Farmers in the suburbs also have the custom of inviting their ancestors home to spend the New Year in the cemetery on this night. Until the sixth day, they burned money and sent their ancestors away.

Worship of Buddhist temples: Almost every family in old Beijing has Buddhist temples, and the gods worshipped are Guanyin, Guan Sheng, God of Wealth and so on. However, the scale of Buddhist temples varies greatly. A family with status may be a small building or a main hall, and a poor family may only have a small Buddhist shrine. Buddhist temples, big or small, must be offered on New Year's Eve. Offering a table is also called receiving a table. The quality and quantity of offerings on the table naturally change with the size of the Buddhist temple. The most abundant offerings are "Tang Jiu", that is, nine kinds of offerings, namely: steamed bread, honey, set cakes, fresh noodles, fruits, hundred fruits, flower cakes, New Year's rice, vegetarian jiaozi, vegetarian dishes and so on. In addition, there must be the usual "five offerings" before offering the table, that is, an incense burner, a pair of candlesticks and a pair of vases (tubes). Candlestick with plain wax, incense burner with thick finger "meridian incense" (or Tibetan incense). The above offerings are put together before noon, and wax is lit at noon, commonly known as "incense". From then on, the incense can't be interrupted until the "breaking five".

Having a family reunion dinner is an essential part of New Year's Eve. Most of the new year's purchases are food. Preparations include cooking New Year's dishes.

Chicken day on the first day of the first month

Send the lights at night, and bring them back in the morning of the first day.

On New Year's Eve, people don't sleep all year round and wait for the dawn. This is the so-called "guarding the old age". The candle at the time of observing the year is called "observing the year candle", which is a particularly thick candle. In fact, observing the age is a comprehensive activity to kill time. After everyone has eaten and drunk enough, it is not time to worship God. Commonly known as shou sui. The meaning is more elegant, saying that keeping the age is to cherish time or pray for the elders to live longer.

Breakfast on the first day of the first month is vegetarian. It is said that eating vegetarian food for one day on New Year's Day is equivalent to being vegetarian all year round. However, on New Year's Day, relatives and friends often visit, which makes it inconvenient to treat people with vegetarian dishes. Later, it was simplified to just eating breakfast. It is a man's business to pay New Year greetings. Women are not allowed to go out to send greetings before their fifth birthday. Even close neighbors can only talk in the yard and are not allowed to enter the house. This is the so-called "taboo" custom. Sprinkling sesame stalks in the yard on New Year's Eve is equivalent to announcing the beginning of "taboo". On the sixth day of the first month, women began to congratulate each other.

Kowtow on the first day. After people stop eating flat food before dawn, the younger generation kowtows to the elders at home first, and then kowtows to other families (usually their own families) in small groups to pay New Year greetings. Except for a venerable old man, everyone else in the family went to the neighbor's house, and even Sanli Wucun paid New Year greetings to relatives and new friends. If the younger generation is a child or a newly married daughter-in-law, the elders should give some lucky money.

Visit relatives. The order of visiting relatives is: nephew goes to grandma's house, daughter goes to her parents' house with her husband, and then goes to aunt, aunt and sister's house. Except for special circumstances, we should all go back to worship. There is a folk saying that "the first day and the second day are beautiful, and the third day and the fourth day are good for worship festivals".

Taboo: sneezing in bed is even more taboo. If you sneeze in bed, the Lord will get sick this year. If you want to sneeze, you must get up quickly. On New Year's Eve, someone calls your name outside. Don't promise, saying it's a ghost calling you. At the beginning of the new year, the first thing to do after washing is to eavesdrop on the first words of pedestrians at the street corner to predict the bad luck in the coming year. This is called "listening to confession". Put a small wallet in jiaozi, and whoever eats it will have a good year. Throwing the latch or wood in the yard three times in a row is called "dropping a thousand dollars". Some customs have a long history, such as saying "it's safe to break" once the container breaks. On New Year's Eve, we don't sweep the floor or pour out slops and garbage, for fear of sweeping out or pouring out the God of Wealth. If the knife can't be cut, it will kill or quarrel. There is also the custom of not taking medicine, or you will be ill for a year.

The married daughter should not go back to her mother's house at this time, or she will be poor. Don't quarrel with others, or you won't have good luck for a year; Don't say unlucky things, let alone scold the street, or you will have bad luck this year ... It's just that children are not sensible, and no matter how taboo they are, it's inevitable to say "dirty words" when something goes wrong. How to deal with this "child's words", people have also come up with a wonderful solution, using papyrus (now toilet paper) to wipe their mouths. Is to treat the child's mouth as an ass, talk like fart, and not count.

One or two dog days on the first day of the first month.

Sacrifice to the god of wealth: it is the main content of the second day of the first month. On this day, both shops and ordinary families will hold activities to worship the god of wealth. Families offered sacrifices to the God of Wealth who arrived on New Year's Eve. In fact, the bought rough printed matter was incinerated. I want to eat wonton at noon this day, commonly known as "Yuanbao soup". Fish and mutton were used as sacrifices. Sacrifice should use "five sacrifices", that is, whole pig, whole sheep, whole chicken, whole duck, red live carp and so on. I hope to make a fortune this year.

On the third day of the first month

On the third day of the first month, commonly known as "Red Dog Day", it is considered that this day is not suitable for going out to entertain guests. If you violate this taboo, you will be poor for life. So the first day and the second day were busy for two days, and on the third day everyone would sleep until late in the morning. On the third day of the first month, it is said that "mice get married". After nightfall, every household should turn off the lights and go to bed early, and sprinkle salt and rice all over the house. This is the so-called "mouse sharing money".

On the fourth day of the first month

On the fourth day of the fourth lunar month, the gods who ascended to heaven on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month last year all returned to earth on the fourth day. Therefore, we should prepare sacrifices, incense sticks and paper horses to welcome the immortals to earth. As the saying goes, "Send God early and receive God later", so receiving God is usually held in the afternoon. According to folklore, the fifth day of the first month is the birthday of the God of Wealth, so after the first day of the first month, the next most important activity is to welcome the God of Wealth-the night before the arrival of the God of Wealth's birthday, all families will hold a banquet to celebrate the God of Wealth. Because we have to prepare offerings to receive God, the food is particularly rich, so we say "we are full on the fourth day of school".

The fifth day of the first month.

Untie five knots. The fifth day of the first lunar month is the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, which is a superstition. People think that the fifth, fourteenth and twenty-third days are unlucky days. The fifth day of the first month is the first unlucky day after the new year, and it is very taboo to "visit relatives and friends". The backlog is to improve the life at home for the holidays. On that day in Yin Shi, the housewife took out a little ash from the stove and sent it to the intersection of the street, commonly known as "sending poor ash". The fifth day of the first month is called "Breaking Five". There are too many taboos from the first day to the fifth day, so don't "act rashly". Once the fifth day is over, New Year's Eve is basically over, and taboos are no longer prohibited. Women no longer taboo, began to visit each other and congratulate each other. Newly-married women also return to their parents' homes on this day, calling it "mothering". The company is preparing to open the market the next day. Early the next morning, the shopkeeper led the guys to burn incense and percentage, and put paper money, grain and Oracle Bone Inscriptions on sesame stalks for burning, which was called "sending the gods". Then the "opening of the market" was officially opened.

A year's plan starts with spring. People pin their hopes on the beautiful spring and hope that people will prosper and live a better life.

On the sixth day of the first month

On the sixth day of the first month, "sending the poor" was a very distinctive custom in ancient China. It means offering sacrifices to poor ghosts (poor gods). According to "Miscellaneous Notes on the Year of the Year", the ceremony of sending the poor customs is like this: "The day before yesterday, people swept the dung broom, but people didn't make it, covered seven cakes and abandoned the avenue to send it away." Han Yu's "Send the Poor" mentioned that it is necessary to build a car for the poor and lead the sail into the wall. "That is to say, when sending the poor, we should prepare symbolic vehicles and boats for the poor and bring dry food to the poor. In some places, there is also the practice of "sending the poor with banana boats". The sixth day of the sixth lunar month means that farmers in the old society began to prepare for spring ploughing on this day.

The first day of the first month is seven days.

The seventh day of the first month is called "Men's Day", also called "Men's Victory Day" and "Seven Yuan Festival". On the seventh day of the first month, the weather was fine and the population was safe and smooth in the first year. On this day, people will eat spring pancake rolls "box lunch" (cooked meat food) and spread pancakes in the yard.

The eighth day of the first month

On the eighth day of the first month, the star Lord who gives himself the birth year is called "offering a sacrifice to a star". Shunxing: The eighth day of the first month is the day of "the lower bound of stars", and people worship the stars on this day, which is called Shunxing. Sacrifice uses two sacred symbols, the first one is printed with Xingke, Suzaku and Xuanwu. The second is "the longevity star king, the core monument of life". Two sheets were stacked one after the other, clipped on paper clips and placed in the middle of the back of the table in the yard for worship. Before the Oracle, there is a snuff twisted with yellow and white lantern paper dipped in sesame oil, which is put into a "lamp bowl" with a diameter of one inch, or lit with 49 lamps or 100 o 8 lamps. Then cook Yuanxiao and green tea. After dusk, sacrifice the Beidou as the target. After the sacrifice, when the residual lamp will be extinguished, the sacred scriptures and incense roots will be incinerated together with sesame stems and pine and cypress branches to be sacrificed. After the sacrifice of the stars, the whole family got together for the Lantern Festival.

Early September

The ninth day of the first lunar month is the birthday of the Jade Emperor. It is said that the 19th day of the first lunar month is Qiu Zhenren's birthday. /kloc-in the early morning of 0/8, the immortals came here in disguise, and everyone who has a destiny can meet them.

The tenth day of the first month

On the tenth day of the tenth lunar month, "Shuipo was born", so she couldn't wash clothes that day.

The fifteenth day of the first month

Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month, also known as Shangyuan Festival and Lantern Festival. Lantern Festival is another important activity after the first day of the Lunar New Year. It was night, decorated with lanterns, and solve riddles on the lanterns, watching fireworks, eating Yuanxiao, enjoying the moon and writing poems, got used to each other. People regard the fifteenth day of the first month as a New Year holiday. One is to eat flat food, and the other is to light a lamp. After dinner that day, families began to light flowers. Connect the pre-made tissue paper with a diameter of two or three centimeters to a lamp, put it in a bowl, pour in sesame oil and stir, take it out with chopsticks and light it. It is everywhere on the door, on the stone strip, on the shed, on the wall, on the waterway eye, in the kitchen, around the corner of the door, in the middle and outside the door. Snuff is dancing on the ground, the moon is high in the sky and the stars are shining, which makes people feel like they are in a fairyland.

The fireworks in the Tenth Five-Year Plan are also spectacular. Fireworks are organized by a big village led by various non-governmental areas, and "lighting old poles" began before the tenth five-year plan. Everything on the old telephone pole was displayed with fireworks. By then, people of all ages, men, women and children will be far away, and the audience will be like a collection. It takes more than two hours to finish this old pole. On the day of Shangyuan, various folk cultural activities staged a series of competitions, which were very lively. Shangyuan Festival is a combination of Buddhism and Taoism and folk customs. As early as the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, people began to offer sacrifices to the God Taiyi, also known as Taiyi, which is the most noble among the gods, that is, the position of God. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set up an altar in the southeast suburb to worship Taiyi, and Buddhism was introduced to China. According to the rules of Buddhism, on the day of Shangyuan, all monasteries burned lanterns to worship Buddha. Later, the worship of Taiyi God was combined with Buddhism, and lanterns were released on the fifteenth day of the first month, which spread among the people and gradually developed into a spectacular lantern viewing activity. After the climax of the last Lantern Festival, people were basically exhausted and began to consider the life content of the New Year.