Spring Festival is Chinese New Year.The New Year is the first day of first month in the lunar calendar.It marks the beginning of Spring Festival.But it is not the official beginning of Chinese lunar calendar.Lichun(立春) is the beginning of spring(1st solar term节气) in the Chinese lunar calendar.
Under the lunar system,Chinese ancient astronomers marked off every 15 days as one solar term calculating the terms according to the positions of the Earth and the Sun.These terms are still used today,especially by the Chinese farmers in planning planting cycles.Lichuan is the first day of one of the 15 day terms and usually falls about ten days after Chinese New Year's.For instance,the year of 1983 fell on February 13th.Lichuan fell on February 4th.Just as Christmas is the most festive holiday in the Christian world,Spring Festival is the most important holiday in China.It lasts 15 days from the New Year's to Yuanxiao Festival or Lantern Festival.Celebrations last for two weeks and the State Council officially marks Spring Festival with a seven-day national holiday.
On New Year‘s Eve,families get together to send off the old year and usher in the new（辞旧迎新）,a year which they hope will be rich in harvest,happiness and success.Everybody goes to bed later than usual.Some spend the night to watch the year go out,chatting or playing card games,watching TV and nibbling sweets and nuts and all sorts of delicacies.For the children,it is a treat to set off firecrackers and fireworks and you can hear them pop and bang throughout the night.
The first two days of the new year are spent visiting friends or relatives.Most people go back to work on the seventh day.In the countryside,however,festivities go on until the fifteenth day which is Lantern Festival（元宵节）.
During Lantern Festival,people decorate their homes with colourful lanterns and treat themselves with Yuanxiao,a kind of glutinous rice (糯米)flour balls stuffed with sweet fillings or meat or dried cassia(肉桂) flower.Throughout China,lanterns of every description are put on public display.
