The ninth day of the new year: Lantern Festival

When I was a child, the winter vacation was very long, usually starting from the sixteenth day of the twelfth lunar month and ending on the second day of February of the following year. For me, the fifteenth day of the first month is the most anticipated day, because it is the most interesting day to set off fireworks and dig river lanterns to make lanterns.

There is no habit of eating Yuanxiao in my hometown. On the Lantern Festival, I still eat jiaozi for the New Year, but this day is very different from New Year's Eve. Most importantly, besides firecrackers, I can have some more interesting fireworks. That year, I was about ten years old and still in primary school. It seems that my mother has just changed to a public teacher and is in a good mood. For the first time, she bought me all kinds of fireworks and firecrackers for 50 yuan, such as lifting tendons, getting angry, jumping cats, paintball cans, bees, parachutes and so on. A big bag is so full that my eyes are straight. I can't wait for it to get dark immediately, so I can take it to the streets to show off to my friends.

There are two kinds of lifting ribs, one is wrapped in colorful plastic paper, the other is wrapped in gray soft paper, both of which are about ten centimeters long, about the thickness of a ballpoint pen core, and they need to be lit with incense or matches. The former is grumpy and squeaky. From time to time, there will be small unburned red powder balls dripping down, so you have to be careful to burn your shoes. The latter is mild, and there is almost no sound when it is lit. It just spews out small stars quietly, which is very beautiful at night, and there will be no gunpowder balls falling, so the safety factor is higher.

Anger, also called monkey, is a slender bamboo pole with something like firecrackers tied to the top. Hold the top gently with your left hand, light the fuse with your right hand, and it will fly into the air with a whoosh and explode. Never hold a bamboo stick at the bottom, or you will be injured by the sprayed gunpowder, but I dare not hold the top, so I thought of a good way to insert a bamboo stick into a beer bottle, which solved the problem perfectly.

The name jumping cat is very vivid, and the length and thickness are no different from firecrackers. The difference lies in the location of the package and the leads. Ordinary firecrackers are mostly red, and jumping cats are red, white and zebra; The lead of ordinary firecrackers is at one end, and the lead of jumping cats is in the middle. Put the jumping cat on the flat ground, light the fuse, and it begins to "keep spinning and jumping", spinning in circles at high speed, and emitting red and green flames at the same time. If you are bold, you may fly around in the sky after being ignited. Bees are very similar to jumping cats. They have more wings on both sides than jumping cats. It is worthy of the name that you can take off without throwing it up and make a buzzing sound at the same time.

The principle of paintball gun barrel is similar to the paintball gun barrel at today's wedding, except that the paintball gun barrel we put when we were young sprayed explosive gunpowder paintballs. The length of paintball gun barrel is short, half a meter long and twenty or thirty centimeters short, which determines the number and launching time of paintballs. Friends who have seen the 1986 version of The Journey to the West may still remember that the Monkey King used a golden cudgel to put several flares into the sky when he was fighting with three Buddhist masters to help the Tang Priest beg for rain, just like the paintball barrel we played. Holding a paintball gun barrel, shooting at the night sky, watching one paintball after another "whoosh-whoosh-"fly out, and then "bang-bang-"exploded in mid-air, I felt like a heroic artillery, not to mention my pride, excitement and pride.

What surprised me most that year was a box of "parachutes" my mother bought me, which I had never heard of before. "Parachute" is the largest, the most exquisite package, the thickest and longest lead core, and colorful parachutes are printed on the outermost packaging box. I thought about it for a long time and didn't understand what was inside. The most mysterious things will always be revealed at the end. When everything else is done, I will take the box of "parachutes" to the gate of the courtyard, far away from the firewood pile, and a large group of friends will gather next to me, all wanting to see what this "parachute" is. As the owner of the "parachute", I lit the fuse nervously and quickly ran to the gate of the hospital to watch intently. The fuse became shorter and shorter, and finally it blew ... "Bang!" A spherical golden bullet flew into the sky. "bang!" Another one. This is a big paintball barrel! I was depressed when someone suddenly shouted: Look, look! This is a parachute, and I quickly looked in the direction he pointed. The first golden bullet actually opened a colorful parachute, still glowing, and slowly staggered down and landed on the roof of the neighbor's house next door! Other golden bullets also turned into parachutes one by one, all emitting colorful light, but they disappeared before landing. We just watched until all the parachutes disappeared, and I reacted and ran to the roof of my neighbor's house to find the first parachute, but there was no shadow of it except a small piece of ashes!

Digging river lanterns and making lanterns are also customs that have been passed down for many years. They are all my father's best. The material used for digging river lanterns is carrots. Cut the thickest part of the carrot, about five centimeters thick, and carefully dig it into the shape of an ashtray with a fruit knife. The most difficult thing to dig is the bottom of the cylinder. If you can't dig through it, you should try to be as flat as possible. Finally, I will carve a circle of edges into various patterns. I'm all thumbs. I can only carve triangles. After the river lantern is dug, it is of course untenable to put a small piece of red candle in it. Pour a few drops of candle oil first, stick the candle on the bottom of the river lamp while it is hot, and then hold it in your hand. The bottom and side of the Red River lamp, red candle and red flame are translucent, which makes people feel warm. The finished river lanterns should be placed on both sides of the courtyard gate, one on each side, and they can only be taken home the next morning.

On the fifteenth night of the first month, my hometown also has the habit of hanging red lanterns. Nowadays, most lanterns are bought from shopping malls. Lanterns are not candles, but light bulbs. At that time, the paper lanterns hung in my house were all genuine handmade by my father. First, the skeleton of the lantern is folded with thin iron wire, and then the skeleton is wrapped with two layers of red paper to make a lampshade. Put a small wooden board at the bottom of the lantern to hold candles, leave a small vent at the top, and then install a wooden handle to pick the lantern. A red lantern is ready. Although it is not exquisite and light, it is elegant and windproof. More importantly, this is a folk song that says, "Be careful with your own red lantern." Every time my father makes a lantern, I will take it for a walk in the street. There are many children carrying lanterns in the street, looking at the red lanterns at the door of every household and feeling the warmth of the lanterns in their hands. Even the cold wind is not cold.

Li Hu, 2065438+April 2, 2009 in Jining.