Chinese New Year, which is also known as the Spring Festival, is the most important of the Chinese holidays. It consists of a period of celebrations, and is a time for family members to come together to "Guo Nian" or pass into the new year together.

The origin of the Lunar New Year Festival, which is also called “guo nian” by Chinese, can be traced back thousands of years, and involves a series of colorful legends and traditions.

One of the most famous legends is Nian, which was believed to be an extremely cruel and ferocious beast that the ancients believed would devour people on New Year's Eve.

How do Chinese people celebrate the Spring Festival?

The Chinese New Year begins on the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month and ends on the full moon 15 days later— the Lantern Festival. During this period, money in little red envelopes are given to children for good fortune. Homage is also paid to ancestors and gods. Firecrackers are set off everywhere, and dragon and lion dances are performed from the busiest cities to the most remote villages.

Preparations for the Chinese New Year in old China started well in advance of the New Year's Day. The 20th of the Twelfth Moon was set aside for the annual housecleaning. Every corner of the house must be swept and cleaned to welcome the New Year.

The starting day December 24th of the lunar year is believed to be the time when various gods ascend to heaven to pay their respects and report on household affairs to the Jade Emperor, the supreme Taoist deity. According to tradition, households busily honor these gods by burning ritualistic paper money to provide for their traveling expenses. Another ritual is to smear malt sugar on the lips of the Kitchen God, to ensure that he either submits a favorable report to the Jade Emperor or keeps silent.

Before New Year's Eve, Spring Couplets, written in black ink on large vertical scrolls of red paper, were put on the walls or on the sides of the gate-ways. These couplets are short poems written in Classical Chinese to express good wishes for the family in the coming year. In addition, colorful new year pictures (NIAN HUA) were placed on the walls. During the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), it is also traditional to decorate the homes with new year paintings. The most popular paintings are Door Gods pasted on the front doors to keep ghosts and monsters away.

New Year's Eve is a time to hold a reunion dinner where members of the family get together for celebration. Chicken and fish are always included in the New Year's Eve dinner, and there is a Chinese phrase "nian nian you yu", or "every year there is fish/leftover", which is a homophone meaning "be blessed every year" or "have profit every year" and so traditionally the fish should not been eaten up completely. The New Year's Eve celebration was usually highlighted with a religious ceremony given in honor of Heaven and Earth, the gods of the household and the family ancestors.

The actual New Year day is spent with close friends and relatives, worshipping ancestors and gods. New clothes and new shoes are worn to symbolize the New Year and red packets containing small amounts of money are exchanged.People usually visit the family of the wife if a couple is married on the second day of the new year. On the evening of the 15th of the First Moon, when the New Year celebrations ended, people carried lanterns into the streets to take part in a great parade.

Young men would highlight the parade with a dragon dance. Made of bamboo, silk, and paper, the dragon might stretch for more than one hundred feet in length. Two people are inside the head moving the giant puppet with precision and ease from the background drum beat. The lion will move through every emotion, from happiness and gaiety to the deepest sorrow. The bobbing and weaving of the dragon was an impressive sight, and formed a fitting finish to the New Year festival.

What is the traditional food eaten during the Spring Festival?

There are many foods in the Chinese culture that are associated with the Chinese New Year. Although preferences vary from region to region, some food is popular among the whole country.

?Niangao has the symbolic meaning of raising oneself higher in each coming year. Chinese families who practice Chinese traditional religion also offer niangao to the kitchen god.

It is believed that niangao is served to the kitchen god to help him provide a sweet report on the family when all the household gods go off to heaven to report on a family during the new year, because he will be satisfied and not inclined to deliver criticism — or that his lips are so sticky from the cakes that he is unable to make too much of a report. Fagao, literally translated as "Prosperity Cake", in which the sound "fa" means "be prosperous", is another traditional food eaten on the Spring Festival. It is made with wheat flour, water, sugar and leavened with either yeast or baking powder.

Dumplings, are small or large mounds of dough stuffed with meat and/or vegetables and cooked until done. Red Jujubes symbolizes the gaining of prosperity, and fish eaten on this day corresponds to the common greeting for the new year "niannian you yu" which means to enjoy a surplus, i.e. financial security, year after year.