Far and away the most important holiday in China is Spring Festival moncler cheap , also known as the Chinese New Year. To the Chinese people it is as important as Christmas to people in the West. The dates for this annual celebration are determined by the lunar calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar, so the timing of the holiday varies from late January to early February moncler coats cheap .
To the ordinary Chinese, the festival actually begins on the eve of the lunar New Year's Day and ends on the fifth day of the first month of the lunar calendar. But the 15th of the first month moncler jackets cheap , which normally is called the Lantern Festival, means the official end of the Spring Festival in many parts of the country.
Preparations for the New Year begin the last few days of the last moon, when houses are thoroughly cleaned, debts repaid, hair cut and new clothes purchased moncler jackets sale . Houses are festooned with paper scrolls bearing auspicious antithetical couplet (as show on both side of the page) and in many homes, people burn incense at home and in the temples to pay respects to ancestors and ask the gods for good health in the coming months.
"Guo Nian," meaning "passing the year," is the common term among the Chinese people for celebrating the Spring Festival. It actually means greeting the new year moncler jackets on sale . At midnight at the turn of the old and new year, people used to let off fire-crackers which serve to drive away the evil spirits and to greet the arrival of the new year. In an instant the whole city would be engulfed in the deafening noise of the firecrackers.
On New Year's Eve moncler sale , all the members of families come together to feast. Jiaozi, a steamed dumpling as pictured below, is popular in the north, while southerners favor a sticky sweet glutinous rice pudding called nian gao.
The custom of pasting New Year Prints originated from the tradition of placing Door Gods on the external doors of houses. With the creation of board carvings moncler jackets men , New Year paintings cover a wide range of subjects. The most famous ones are Door Gods, Surplus Year after Year, Three Gods of Blessing, Salary and Longevity, An Abundant Harvest of Crops, Thriving Domestic Animals and Celebrating Spring. Four producing areas of New Year Print are Tɑohuɑwu of Suzhou, Yɑngliuqing of Tianjin, Wuqiɑng of Hebei and Weifang of Shangdong. Now the tradition of pasting New Year paintings is still kept in rural China, while it is seldom followed in cities moncler jackets .