Happy Lunar New Year or Spring Festival as it is alternatively known! This holiday is full of exciting traditions, foods, fireworks, and other practices cited to bring luck to those who participate. While it may seem like we are in the thick of a cold winter, the Lunar New Year cracks the ice and celebrates the incoming spring. The beauty in the Lunar New Year is in leaning into the meaning behind the potential with new beginnings, starting fresh, with limitless possibilities. Although the New Year is not a religious holiday, many travel to temples for blessings and celebration.
Traditional festivities all surround some sort of huge family gathering and feast in which everyone sits together and enjoys each other's company. At this meal there are many customs observed, each with their own meaning and symbolism that connects to the occasion. For example, the hit color of the Lunar New Year is red in its full glory, as red is a symbolism of warding off potential evil. It is customary to decorate one's home by investing in red lanterns, red drapery, red ornaments, and red tablecloths. Another tradition for the holiday is displaying citrus fruits, specifically clementines, as they are linked towards abundance and fortune. As part of a larger connection to the meaning of the holiday and the new beginnings that come with it, it is customary to have a “sweeping of the dust” ceremony or a household spring cleaning to make space for the new energies that are coming. Another tradition is to cut one's hair prior to the New Year, as cutting it after is said to be bad luck. But no one leaves the holiday empty handed, as it is customary to give out money for good luck in the New Year.
The holiday also has much ancestral significance as it has been passed down through the generations as a foundational calendar event. In fact, many people decorate their feast table with ancestral pictures and burn incense to connect the two worlds together in this moment of celebration. Another connection through the generations is in the traditional foods served and prepared through familial recipes that are passed down. Dishes include a wide variety of egg rolls, Nian Gao, dumplings, Yo Choy sum, Lotus root and pork soup and more.
Datonics wishes everyone who celebrates a Gong Hei Fat Choy, or Xin Nian Hao and enjoy the family time and fireworks!