On the customs and habits of Anji Spring Festival

The customs and habits of Anji Spring Festival are as follows:

1. Sticking Spring Festival couplets:

1. Spring Festival couplets are also called door couplets, spring couplets, couplets, peach symbols, etc. They depict the background of the times and express good wishes with neat, dual, concise and exquisite words, which is a unique literary form in China. Every Spring Festival, no matter in urban or rural areas, every household should select a red Spring Festival couplets and stick them on the door to add festive atmosphere to the festival. This custom began in the Song Dynasty and became popular in the Ming Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, the ideology and artistry of Spring Festival couplets had been greatly improved. Liang Zhangju's monograph "Poems on Spring Festival couplets" discussed the origin of couplets and the characteristics of various works.

2. There are many kinds of Spring Festival couplets, which can be divided into door hearts, frame pairs, horizontal stripes, spring strips and square fights according to their places of use. The "door core" is attached to the center of the upper end of the door panel; The "frame pair" is attached to the left and right door frames; "Cross-dressing" is attached to the crossbar of the door; "Spring strips" are posted in corresponding places according to different contents; "Dou Jin", also called "door leaf", is a square diamond, which is often attached to furniture and screen walls.

Second, stick grilles posted the word "Fu" upside down:

1. In the folk, people also like to post various paper-cuts on the windows-window grilles. Window grilles not only set off the festive atmosphere, but also integrate decoration, appreciation and practicality. Paper-cutting is a very popular folk art in China, which has been loved by people for thousands of years. Because it is mostly stuck on the window, it is also called "window flower". With its unique generalization and exaggeration, window grilles show auspicious things and good wishes incisively and vividly, and decorate the festival with splendor.

2. While putting up Spring Festival couplets, some families should put large and small "Fu" on the doors, walls and lintels. Sticking the word "Fu" in the Spring Festival is a long-standing folk custom in China. The word "Fu" refers to good fortune and good fortune, which places people's longing for a happy life and wishes for a bright future. In order to fully reflect this yearning and wish, some people simply paste the word "fu" upside down, indicating that "happiness has arrived" and "blessing has arrived". There are also people who elaborate the word "Fu" into various patterns, such as longevity, longevity peach, carp jumping over the dragon gate, abundant grains, dragons and phoenixes, and so on.

Third, hanging New Year pictures:

Hanging New Year pictures during the Spring Festival is also very common in urban and rural areas, and the thick black and colorful New Year pictures add a lot of prosperous and happy festive atmosphere to thousands of families. New Year pictures are an ancient folk art in China, reflecting people's simple customs and beliefs and pinning their hopes for the future. New Year pictures, like Spring Festival couplets, originated from "door gods". With the rise of woodblock printing, the content of New Year pictures is not limited to monotonous themes such as door gods, but has become rich and colorful. In some New Year pictures workshops, classic color New Year pictures such as Three Stars of Fu Lushou, heavenly god blesses the people, Harvest of Five Grains, Prosperity of Six Livestock, and Greeting the Spring with Happiness have been produced to meet people's good wishes of celebrating and praying for the New Year. There are three important producing areas of New Year pictures in China: Taohuawu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong; Three schools of Chinese New Year pictures have been formed, each with its own characteristics.

Fourth, observing the New Year's Eve:

1. Observing the New Year's Eve is one of the most important annual custom activities, and the custom of observing the New Year's Eve has a long history. The earliest record was found in the "Local Records" in the Western Jin Dynasty: on New Year's Eve, all parties gave gifts, which was called "giving the year back"; Wine and food are invited, which is called "don't be old"; It is called "dividing the age" when the young and the old gather to drink and wish a complete song; Everyone stays up all night, waiting for the morning, which is called "keeping the old age".

2. "One night is even two years old, and the night is divided into two days." On New Year's Eve, the whole family got together, ate New Year's Eve, lit candles or oil lamps, sat around the stove and chatted, waiting for the time to say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new year, and kept vigil all night, which symbolized driving away all evil diseases and epidemics and looking forward to good luck and good luck in the new year. This custom gradually became popular. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, wrote a poem "Shounian": "Cold resigns from winter snow, and warmth brings spring breeze". To this day, people are used to keeping the new year's eve and welcoming the new year.

3. In ancient times, observing the old age had two meanings: the elderly kept the old age as "resigning from the old age", which meant cherishing time; Young people keep their age to prolong the life of their parents. Since the Han dynasty, the time when the old and the new years alternate is generally at midnight.

Fourth, set off firecrackers:

There is a saying in China that "open the door to set off firecrackers". That is, at the arrival of the new year, the first thing for every household to open the door is to set off firecrackers to eliminate the old and welcome the new with the sound of firecrackers. Firecrackers are a specialty of China, also known as "firecrackers", "firecrackers" and "firecrackers". Its origin is very early, and it has a history of more than two thousand years. Setting off firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere, which is a kind of entertainment in festivals and can bring happiness and good luck to people. With the passage of time, the application of firecrackers has become more and more extensive, and the varieties and colors have become more and more numerous. Every major festival and happy event celebration, as well as marriage, building a house, opening a business, etc., firecrackers should be set off to celebrate and make a good luck. At present, Liuyang in Hunan, Foshan and Dongyao in Guangdong, Yichun and Pingxiang in Jiangxi, Wenzhou in Zhejiang and other regions are famous hometown of fireworks in China. The firecrackers produced are of many colors and high quality, which are not only sold well in the whole country, but also exported to the world.

5. New Year's greetings:

1. On the first day of the New Year, people get up early, put on the most beautiful clothes, dress up neatly, go out to visit relatives and friends, and wish each other a happy New Year. There are many ways to pay New Year's greetings, some of which are led by the same clan leader to pay New Year's greetings door to door. Some colleagues invite several people to pay New Year greetings; There are also people who get together to congratulate each other, which is called "group worship". Because it took time and effort to pay a New Year call at home, some elites and scholars later used stickers to congratulate each other, thus developing the later "new year card".

2. During the Spring Festival, the younger generation should first pay New Year greetings to their elders, wishing them a long and healthy life. The elders can distribute the lucky money prepared in advance to the younger generation. It is said that the lucky money can suppress evil spirits, because "old" and "precious" are homophonic, and the younger generation can spend one year safely with the lucky money. There are two kinds of lucky money, one is to thread colored rope into a dragon shape and put it at the foot of the bed, which is recorded in Yanjing Year; The other is the most common, that is, parents wrap the money distributed to their children in red paper. The lucky money can be given in public after the younger generation pays New Year's greetings, or it can be secretly put under the child's pillow by parents when the child falls asleep on New Year's Eve. It is still popular for elders to distribute lucky money to younger generations.

3. The night before the real Chinese New Year is called reunion night. Wanderers who are away from home have to travel thousands of miles to come home from Wan Li. The whole family has to sit around and wrap jiaozi for the Chinese New Year. jiaozi's practice is to make dumpling skins with flour first, and then fill them with leather bags. The contents of the stuffing are varied, and all kinds of meat, eggs, seafood and seasonal vegetables can be filled. The orthodox jiaozi method is to cook them in clear water, and then fish them up to adjust them. There are also ways to fry jiaozi and bake jiaozi (fried dumpling). Because the word "He" in dough mixing means "He"; Jiaozi's "Jiao" and "Jiao" are homophonic, and "He" and "Jiao" have the meaning of reunion, so jiaozi is used to symbolize reunion of acacia; It is very auspicious to take the meaning of making friends at an older age; In addition, jiaozi, shaped like an ingot, eats jiaozi during the Chinese New Year, which also has the auspicious meaning of "making a fortune". All the families get together to make a package for jiaozi, so it's fun to celebrate the Spring Festival.