What is the custom of celebrating the Spring Festival in old Beijing?

1, the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month: offering sacrifices to the kitchen.

Kitchen God, commonly known as "Kitchen God". Sacrificing a stove is a signal of the arrival of the old calendar, which is called "Chinese New Year" by old Beijingers. As a nursery rhyme says, "honey melon sacrifices stoves, Chinese New Year sacrifices stoves, Chinese New Year comes, girls want flowers, and boys want guns?" People will provide honeydew melons for the kitchen god and grandma who stick them in the kitchen, hoping to keep their mouths shut and not report them blindly. Then, burn the kitchen god and grandma and send them to heaven.

2. twelfth lunar month: sweeping the house

In ancient times, the Spring Festival cleaning was called "Sweeping the Year Festival", which originated from a religious ceremony of the ancient people to drive away the epidemic. Later it gradually evolved into a year-end cleaning. According to early folklore, "dust" is homophonic with the old "Chen". Before the New Year of the first lunar month, sweeping away all the dust at home means getting rid of the old things of the old year, sweeping away all the bad "bad luck" and "bad luck" and welcoming the New Year.

3. twelfth lunar month: making tofu

As the saying goes, "the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth lunar month, tofu mill." But why make "tofu"? As far as tofu itself is concerned, it is a good choice to replace meat. In the past, the poor always looked forward to a good meal in the new year. Tofu is a food between meat and vegetables. It can be used to cook different dishes instead of meat. Of course, "making tofu" also has symbolic significance. The pronunciation of "rot" and "fu" in Chinese is similar, and making tofu means "harvesting happiness and blessings in the new year".

4, twelfth lunar month: cutting meat

Folk proverb: "On the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month, kill pigs and cut meat for the New Year", which means that meat is mainly prepared for the New Year on this day. The so-called killing pigs, of course, is to kill your own pigs; The so-called meat cutting means that poor families who don't raise pigs go to the market to buy meat for the New Year. The reason why "cutting annual meat" is written into the annual festival ballad is because the farming society and economy are underdeveloped, and people can only eat meat at the annual traditional folk stew festival on the 26th of the twelfth lunar month, so it is called "annual meat".

5. Twenty-seventh day of the twelfth lunar month: Killing chickens in the New Year.

On the 27th of the twelfth lunar month, the pace of the Spring Festival is getting closer and closer, and we all seem to hear the bell on New Year's Eve. Every household, the street is full of excitement. I ate delicious stew yesterday, and an important thing to do today is to "kill the chicken". That's what the folk song "Killing chickens on the 27th of the twelfth lunar month" means.

6. twelfth lunar month: steaming steamed buns

"Twenty-nine, steamed bread." In the folk custom of Chinese New Year, on this day, the white flour that has been prepared on the 28th of the twelfth lunar month is steamed into steamed bread. Whoever steams steamed bread big and well will prosper in the new year and win a good prize. Every family also needs steamed jujube cakes, rice cakes and bean buns. They also need to put a red dot on the bean bag, or print a red mark with "Illicium verum" (anise). They also like to make bean buns into thorns (using mung beans as eyes and then cutting them into thorns with scissors), which means "the way to make money".

7. New Year's Eve: Eat jiaozi for the New Year.

Old Beijingers' New Year's Eve dinner is mainly about jiaozi. Bao jiaozi should have meat and vegetables, and take the homonym of "money". The whole family takes turns chopping stuffing, saying "chop little people" while chopping, and there is also the custom of keeping the old age. Shounian begins with New Year's Eve. Everyone ate slowly, chatting and tasting wine until late at night. When the midnight bell of 12 rings, everyone cheers and eats jiaozi to welcome the first day of the new year.

8. New Year's Day: Happy New Year.

The most important thing in the first day of junior high school is to begin to pay New Year greetings, and the temple fair in Beijing also begins on this day. According to the custom of old Beijing, on the first day of the New Year's Day, the son-in-law should see his parents-in-law. Now it's usually the second day, and his daughter and son-in-law go back to their parents' house to pay New Year's greetings. Old Beijingers attach great importance to New Year greetings. The host family should prepare a box with all kinds of dried fruits, which is called "auspicious fruit". No matter how many people come to pay New Year greetings, the food box must be filled to show respect and blessing to the guests.

9. new year's day: worship the god of wealth and borrow ingots.

The next morning, I got up before dawn to cook wonton, because it looked like an ingot. The second day is the day when old Beijingers worship the God of Wealth. Businessmen generally worship Wu Caishen Guan Gong. I did it for nothing. Because the people think that Bigan has no heart or selfishness and can do things fairly. In order to make everything go smoothly in the new year, old Beijingers borrowed "Yuanbao" from temples.