Chinese New Year or Spring Festival

Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is sometimes called the "Lunar New Year" by English speakers. The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this day is called Lantern Festival. Chinese New Year's Eve is known as chú xī. It literally means "Year-pass Eve".

Chinese New Year Hamper is the longest and most important festivity in the Lunar Calendar. The origin of Chinese New Year is itself centuries old and gains significance because of several myths and traditions. Ancient Chinese New Year is a reflection on how the people behaved and what they believed in the most.

Celebrated in areas with large populations of ethnic Chinese, Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and has had influence on the new year celebrations of its geographic neighbors, as well as cultures with whom the Chinese have had extensive interaction. These include Koreans (Seollal), Tibetans and Bhutanese (Losar), Mongolians (Tsagaan Sar), Vietnamese (Tết), and formerly the Japanese before 1873 (Oshogatsu). Outside of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, Chinese New Year is also celebrated in countries with significant Han Chinese populations, such as Singapore, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. In countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States, although Chinese New Year is not an official holiday, many ethnic Chinese hold large celebrations and Australia Post, Canada Post, and the US Postal Service issues New Year's themed stamps.

Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese New Year Hamper vary widely. People will pour out their money to buy presents, decoration, material, food, and clothing. It is also the tradition that every family thoroughly cleans the house to sweep away any ill-fortune in hopes to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of “happiness”, “wealth”, and “longevity”. On the Eve of Chinese New Year, supper is a feast with families. Food will include such items as pigs, ducks, chicken and sweet delicacies. The family will end the night with firecrackers. Early the next morning, children will greet their parents by wishing them a healthy and happy new year, and receive money in red paper envelopes. The Chinese New Year tradition is a great way to reconcile forgetting all grudges, and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone.

Although the Chinese calendar traditionally does not use continuously numbered years, outside China its years are often numbered from the reign of Huangdi. But at least three different years numbered 1 are now used by various scholars, making the year 2009 "Chinese Year" 4707, 4706, or 4646.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year

Chinese New Year Tips And Rituals

Inviting God Of Happiness
It is auspicious to welcome the wealth god into your house during chinese new year hamper. The wealth god ensures you will receive wealth and money luck for the year. However, this year wealth god comes from the south direction on the 1st day of the new year. This is the same direction of the death door this year.
So, invite the god of wealth on the 5th day of chinese new year. This is the birthday of god of wealth.
On the first day of cny, you are advised to receive the god of happiness who brings all kinds of family and wealth luck. The ritual to receive the god of happiness is the same as for the wealth god. This year the god of happiness direction is southeast.
First, wash your body with lime or pomelo leave and wear new clothes. The best colour is yellow or red. This is to make sure you are clean when you are welcoming the god of happiness
Set up a small table outside your main door. This table must be wrapped with red paper. Take the compass and locate the southeast direction. Turn your table to face southeast. In the center of the table, place an incense burner. All the ingredients must be on a red color plate. The 2 sets of 3pcs small cups should in the front of the incense burner. It needs to be in 2 rows. Pour the tea at the first row and the white wine on the second row. Place the god of happiness image at the front of the table.
Once you have prepared the above, you can now start to receive the god of happiness at the auspicious time. Light the candle at your altar inside your house and turn on all the lights in your house. Light the red candle and large incense stick on the small table. The patriarch of the family should hold the large incense stick and prostrate to the god of happiness. When making prayers, he holds the incense sticks in both hands and kneel down. He must invite the god of happiness to come to the house and make all requests on behalf of family members.
Then chinese new year hamper, place the large incense stick onto the incense burner. Light the medium incense stick and distribute to the rest of family members. Everyone should make his or her own wishes

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