Xiaonian --- On the 8th day of the last month of the Lunar Year, we make special porridge with nuts and dried fruits and we also give it to the poor or the ones who are in need. On that special day families begin the big shopping for the Spring Festival.

ShangQuanGai Fair --- On the 15th day, things for Spring Festival are sold in public, which include joss sticks and candles, spring festival scrolls, velvet flowers, meat and vegetarian offerings, and toys etc. We send rented flowers to the people who we care not in bunched but in basket. The flower growers are asked to shoulder the flower basket, mainly Lamei and Yingchun in basin, to the nominees (rent instead of sell, because the flowers in the baskets are not sold but can only be rented). After the Spring Festival, the flowers will be sent back on the 2nd or 3rd lunar month, and cultivated for next year's lease.

SongZaoWang (The kitchen god's holiday) --- On the 23rd day, we sacrifice sticky sweet for the kitchen god and send him back to the heaven, thus he could not say anything unpleasant to the Yu Huang, Jade Emperor.

SaoFangZi --- On the 24th day, we make general housekeeping to welcome the New Year cleanly.

HuChuangHu --- On the 25th day, we change new white window paper (at old times, Chinese paste paper on the window instead of pane) and paste red paper-cut for window decoration, attach the Spring Festival couplets and Door-god figures on the door, and stick the colorful Spring Festival pictures on the wall.

ShouSui --- On the 30th day, we gather together with families and wait for the midnight, when we will eat Jiaozi and Niangao (Spring Festival cake made of glutinous rice flour). Jiaozi means to make the ends meet between the old year and the new one. Niangao indicates that life goes better and better in the coming year. At midnight as soon as the clock rings firecrackers will be set off here and there and all the people are overjoyed.

ChuYi --- On the 1st day in the 1st lunar month, we visit friends and relatives and eat Jiaozi with vegetable fillings.

ChuEr --- On the 2nd day, sons-in-law will visit the family of their wives, and we eat noodles.

ChuSan --- On the 3rd day, we eat Hezi (another kind of dumpling).

PoWu --- On the 5th day, we chop up the stuffing (DuoXiaoRen --- kill the mean persons), and seal the dumpling's wrap (NieXiaoRenZui --- shut up the mouths that one hates) to make Jiaozi.

We have seven days off in the Spring Festival, but the holidays continue¡­

Lantern Festival (also called Yuanxiao Festival)

On the 15th day in the 1st lunar month, people will lay hedgepig and mice type offerings made by flours before the joss and on the windowsills and gate piers. The heads of the offerings should be placed outwards in the morning and inwards in the afternoon, which means to carry money back home. In the evening, people will offer Yuanxiao (boiled rice dumplings) to the joss and the memorial tablet of the forefathers, and then the families eat them. Yuan literally means first, while Xiao refers to night. Yuanxiao is the first time when we see the full moon in the new year. It is traditionally a time for family reunion. The markets, shops and streets are decorated with lanterns and red ribbons. Firecrackers come one after another. People enjoy themselves in the sea of lanterns.

The Spring Festival will not be over though we do not have days off from our job, until

LongTaiTou (also called Eryueer)

On the 2nd day in the 2nd lunar month, LongTaiTou means the dragon raise its head. We will cook flapjack, and make scrambled eggs and mung bean sprouts. Especially all the food we eat today are named what are related with dragon (Long): the Lanlong, sheet jelly made from bean or sweet potato starch, means Lazy Dragon to get rid of the spring tire; the Longzi, the rice; the Longxu, the noodle; the Longlin, the spring pancake; the Longerduo, the Jiaozi. We even drink the Longjing Tea for luck in this day.

The married daughters will come back to their parents'home.
Women should quit needlework, preventing from hurting dragon's eyes, and stop washing clothes as well, avoiding damaging dragon's skin.

Believe or not Spring Festival is a long holiday for our Chinese people. Woo! Nearly two months.