The Spring Festival generally refers to New Year's Eve and the first day of the first lunar month. However, among the people, the traditional Spring Festival spans from the Laba Festival on the 8th day of the 12th lunar month, or the Kitchen God Worship on the 23rd or 24th day of the 12th lunar month, to the 15th day of the first lunar month, with New Year's Eve and the first day of the first lunar month as the climax. During the Spring Festival, the Han nationality and many ethnic minorities in China hold various activities to celebrate. These activities are mainly centered on offering sacrifices to gods and Buddhas, worshipping ancestors, getting rid of the old and welcoming the new, welcoming good fortune and blessings, and praying for a bumper harvest. The activities are rich and colorful, with strong ethnic characteristics.
The first day of the Chinese lunar calendar is called the Spring Festival. It is the most solemn traditional festival for the Chinese people, and also a symbol of unity, prosperity, and a festival that places new hopes for the future. According to records, the Chinese people have celebrated the Spring Festival for more than 4,000 years, and it originated from the times of Yu Shun. One day more than 2,000 years BC, Shun, who ascended the throne as the Son of Heaven, led his subordinates to worship heaven and earth. From then on, people regarded this day as the beginning of the year, which is the first day of the first lunar month. It is said that this is the origin of the lunar New Year, later called the Spring Festival. The Spring Festival was also called Yuan Dan in the past. The month in which the Spring Festival falls is called the first lunar month.
However, the date of Yuan Dan (the first day of the year) was inconsistent in successive dynasties in China: The Xia Dynasty took the first month of the lunar year as the first month, the Shang Dynasty took the 12th lunar month as the first month, after Qin Shi Huang unified the six states, he took the 10th lunar month as the first month, and the early Han Dynasty followed the Qin system. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Liu Che, felt that the calendar was too chaotic, so he ordered his ministers Gongsun Qing and Sima Qian to formulate the "Tai Chu Calendar", which stipulated that the first day of the first lunar month was the beginning of the year, and the first day of the first lunar month was the first day of the year, namely Yuan Dan. After that, China used the Xia calendar (the lunar calendar, also known as the agricultural calendar) for chronology until the end of the Qing Dynasty, a total of 2,080 years.
The Spring Festival had different names in different eras. In the pre-Qin period, it was called "Shangri", "Yuan Ri", "Gai Sui", "Xian Sui", etc.; in the Han Dynasty, it was called "San Chao", "Sui Dan", "Zheng Dan", "Zheng Ri"; in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, it was called "Yuan Chen", "Yuan Ri", "Yuan Shou", "Sui Chao", etc.; in the Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, it was called "Yuan Dan", "Yuan", "Sui Ri", "Xin Zheng", "Xin Yuan", etc.; and in the Qing Dynasty, it was always called "Yuan Dan" or "Yuan Ri".
In 1912, when Sun Yat-sen took office as the Provisional President of the Republic of China in Nanjing, he announced the abolition of the old calendar and the adoption of the Gregorian calendar (the solar calendar), with the Republic of China chronology. It was decided that January 1, 1912 would be the first day of the first year of the Republic of China. January 1 was called the New Year, but not Yuan Dan. However, the people still followed the old calendar, namely the Xia calendar, and celebrated the traditional New Year on February 18 of that year (the first day of the first lunar month in the Renzi Year), and other traditional festivals remained as usual. In view of this, in July 1913 (the second year of the Republic of China), Yuan Shikai, who was in power at that time, approved that the first day of the first lunar month would be the Spring Festival, and agreed to a statutory holiday for the Spring Festival, which was implemented from the following year. Since then, the first day of the lunar year has been officially called the "Spring Festival". The current name "Spring Festival" has only a history of 95 years.
On September 27, 1949, the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference decided that while establishing the People's Republic of China, the Gregorian calendar commonly used in the world would be adopted. To distinguish between the solar calendar year and the lunar calendar year, and because "Lichun", the first of the 24 solar terms in a year, falls around the lunar New Year, January 1 of the solar calendar was named "Yuan Dan", and the first day of the first lunar month was officially renamed "Spring Festival".
The Earth orbits the Sun once, which is called a year in the calendar, cycling endlessly. However, based on the differences in the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, people take the first day of the first lunar month as the beginning of the year. After midnight (12 o'clock) on the 30th day of the 12th lunar month (or the 29th day in a short month) every year, the Spring Festival officially arrives.
As the Spring Festival approaches, people buy New Year's goods. On New Year's Eve, the whole family gathers to have the New Year's Eve dinner, paste New Year pictures and Spring Festival couplets, welcoming the arrival of the new year.
With the founding of New China, the celebration activities of the Spring Festival have become more colorful. It not only retains the old folk customs, but also eliminates some activities with feudal superstitions, and adds many new contents, giving the Spring Festival a new era atmosphere.