Why the New Year's Eve Observance

The Chinese New Year celebration has been passed down from ancient times to the present day, in anticipation of an auspicious new year.

1, the New Year's Eve, why the New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is one of the most important New Year's Eve activities, the custom of the New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest records are found in the Western Jin Dynasty Zhou Zhi's "Land and Customs": New Year's Eve night, each with the gift, known as "feed the year"; wine and food invited, known as the "other year"; young and old get together to drink, wishing to complete, known as the "sub-year"; we all end of the year to keep the year. "; we stay awake all night to wait for the daybreak, called the "old age".

"One night even double the year, five days divided into two days", New Year's Eve night, the whole family gathered together, ate the New Year's Eve dinner, light up candles or oil lamps, sitting around the fireplace chatting, waiting for the time to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, the all-night vigil, symbolizing all the evil plagues and diseases, according to the run away, and look forward to a new year of good luck. This custom gradually prevailed, to the early Tang Dynasty, Tang Taizong Li Shimin wrote a "year-keeping" poem: "cold resignation from the winter snow, the warmth of the spring wind". Until today, people are still accustomed to the New Year's Eve to welcome the new year.

Anciently, there are two meanings of year-end vigil: the elderly year-end vigil for the "resignation of the old year", there is the meaning of the treasure of time and light; young people year-end vigil, is to extend the life of parents. Since the Han Dynasty, the moment of transition between the old and the new year is usually the middle of the night.

2, the origin of New Year's Eve

The origin of the Spring Festival is rumored to be, in ancient times, there is a monster called "year", every year 30 night to come out to haunt. The ferocious "Nian" has a taste for flesh, from birds and beasts to living people, are the object of its devouring. In order to deal with "Nian", people gradually figured out its life pattern - every three hundred and sixty-five days, "Nian" will take advantage of the night, scurrying to the crowded places to wreak havoc once, and wait until the cock crows and breaks the dawn, then return to the mountain. The first day of the year is the day after the cock crows and returns to the mountains and forests.

So, people regard this night as the horror of the "New Year's Eve" and come up with all kinds of tricks to deal with the "New Year", such as observing the New Year's Eve, setting off firecrackers, and giving their children "pressure money" to ward off ghosts and evil spirits. to drive away ghosts and evil spirits. Every night, every family has finished dinner in advance, put out the fire net stove, the pigsty cattle pen all tied up, the mansion front and back doors are sealed, hiding in the house to eat "New Year's Eve dinner", stay up all night to watch the New Year's Eve, praying for the blessing of the gods of the ancestors, until the dawn of the New Year's arrival. The New Year's Eve, gradually become the custom of the New Year's Eve of the Chinese New Year.