On Chinese New Year's Eve, couplets and lanterns are Sheng Li and Sheng Nan's busy work, Sheng Yang and the eldest lady prepare the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, Zheng's father cleans the front and back of the door, Qin's mother chops a large wooden jar of pigweed, and Sister-in-law Chen plays with Qiyun. There is also a custom of pasting couplets, generally couplets are red paper, if there was a funeral at home, you can only use yellow paper or green paper, outsiders will understand at a glance, or simply do not paste, and then paste red couplets after three years.

The reunion dinner is the sumptiest dinner of the year, the whole family toasts to celebrate, and a brazier is placed under the large table. Before eating Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, first set out a few dishes, including meat and vegetarian dishes, bowls and chopsticks, wine cups, pour wine, and then light incense in the courtyard to draw circles and burn paper, calling the uncle and grandparents to come back for the New Year.

Legend has it that incense is to report to the deceased, telling them to come back to pick up money, reunion, and after eating, bless the health and safety of the living. It is said that women who burn paper are iron money and cannot be used by people in the underworld, and they can use their left hand. But I told you not to nag a certain person, I heard that the person who was nagged would have a headache or stomach ache, and set up a water bowl (three chopsticks stood in the bowl, poured, proving that the nagging person left), told for a long time, and after sending it away, the nagging person will get better. After about half an hour, the food was taken back and put in the pot to heat it up before everyone ate it.

At that time, there was a popular saying: If you have tofu, you don't eat sauerkraut, and if you have meat, you don't eat tofu. The Chinese New Year's Eve dinner is a summary of the past year, remembering bittersweet and sweet, and there must be sauerkraut and tofu on the table. Generally, it is stir-fried pig's blood with sauerkraut, fried tofu, several big dishes are white sugar elbow, corn flour steamed pork, soybean sauce steamed meat, braised pig's feet, mutton, fried chicken with fungus, a golden crucian carp, cold dishes are pork liver, pig ears, pork belly, beef, stir-fried vegetables have fatty meat side dishes and lean meat side dishes, each family is different.

Of course. For Orion families, the Chinese New Year's Eve meal is more abundant, wild boar, rabbit meat, pheasant, pig badger, dog badger, muntjac and so on. The taste of wild game is relatively strong, and it is generally eaten with sour chili peppers or sour radish.

Before the reform and opening up, fish was a rare thing, there were no fish in the mountains, the fish in the river were too small, some people used detonators to fish and died, since there was a free market, some traders bought a variety of fish from Ankang to sell in the district, large and small.

And because of the construction of many roads and construction, there are often cannons around to scare away a lot of beasts, muntjac meat has become the most precious, muntjac has a keen sense of hearing, as soon as there is a wind and grass to run, and the speed is very fast, generally four or five wolf dogs can not chase. Most of the hunters find out where the muntjac may pass and set it first, and when they hear the cry of the muntjac, they hurry to pick it up, and if they move a little slowly, they will be picked up by others.

Legend has it that the muntjac is a messenger from the underworld to the underworld, and if they howl in either direction, someone will die in the near future. The local people also judged the approximate age of the person to die based on the different roars.

For example, the old man over 60 years old went back to sleep after a few roars of the muntjac; If it is a middle-aged person, the muntjac will cry very fiercely, for more than an hour; In addition, if it is a person under the age of 30, there are generally parents on it, and it is considered a white-haired person to send a black-haired person, and at this time, there will be an old muntjac and a little muntjac crying together. It sounded terrifying, especially in the middle of the night, and anyone who heard it would be creepy.

Muntjac is generally regarded as a bad thing, but because they run fast, the meat tastes better. And because of the small number, you can definitely show off if you can put on one. A muntjac is about 10 to 20 catties, and it can be fried and stewed.

In contrast, it takes more people to hunt wild boars, a group of people, a group of wolf dogs in the snowy winter, chasing the wild boar all over the mountain. Sometimes it takes two or three days to catch up with a wild boar and then deal with the wild boar in the nearby farmers, one point per person, and the next time they encounter prey, they will gather again.

People who hunt prey are generally for the sake of liveliness, and the winter is cold, and the farm work cannot be done, and it is hot to sweat when going up and down the mountain. Conquering the prey only gives each person a point, but it satisfies their desire to conquer, and it is very fulfilling. Some buddies drank and chatted together, chatting about interesting things in and out of the mountains. One of them is Zhao Butcher and Zhou Qian, the two of them are not good, and they have to obey their efforts. All the way, basically the two of them were there nonsense.

In the mountains, there are no vegetables except cabbage and radish in winter. The basic food eaten during the New Year is dried vegetables and pickled products that have been stored before. Among them, wild bamboo shoots are dished in March and April in the lunar calendar, and it is also a rare dish that can be stored until the New Year. This is followed by shiitake mushrooms, fungus, dried beans, dried potato chips, and the like.

The time to eat Chinese New Year's Eve also varies, because the ancestors came from different places. Locals usually do it around 3 p.m. Qianshan people, around nine o'clock in the morning, customers (meaning people who come from afar, and later stay, for example: Anhui nationality) people are generally around three o'clock in the middle of the night. Customers are stingy when they are poor, as if they are afraid that others will grab food, so on Chinese New Year's Eve, they first roast the fire, chat, and keep the New Year, until three o'clock to start the meal on time, and close the front and back doors.

No matter what time of day the meal is served, the dishes on the table will be different, but there will never be soup. Because there is water in the soup, it symbolizes that the crops of the coming year will be flooded, echoing the fact that the floor cannot be swept from the first to the third day of the new year, and the sweeping symbolizes the wind, and corn and wheat cannot resist the storm.

Dumplings or noodles are a must-eat staple for breakfast on the first day of the Lunar New Year, followed by dumplings for lunch. Tangyuan means reunion, noodles mean longevity, and dumplings are likened to moths, meaning to fly high and far. In short, the Chinese New Year is a joyful event, children look forward to new clothes, and adults look forward to a good harvest in the coming year.

There is a taboo not to go out on the first day of junior high school, especially children are not allowed to go to other houses, because children are easy to say some unlucky things. For example: Ha (broken), finished, begged, dead, etc. Adults sound particularly disgusted, so they take care of their children, and they can walk around the next day, and they usually tell children to avoid eating.

The courtyard of the Zheng family is the largest courtyard in the mountains before and after, and there are more than 20 households, all surnamed Zheng, but the same surname is not from the same clan. Several yards and dams are very wide, and it is more than enough for several families to dry grain together in summer. In the past, the most difficult thing in the family was Aunt Wang, but now, life is better, but the three brothers marrying their daughters-in-law has become a sad thing.

The old couple originally wanted to use two daughters to exchange their two sons (whoever marries a woman from her family has to give a woman to her family as a daughter-in-law), but his family is too poor and the children are illiterate, so they have to marry them off to reduce the burden on the family. Now that life has become more prosperous, Aunt Wang's heart is warm, she no longer wants to have anything to do with Zhou Qian, and her small body is straight. Every Chinese New Year's Eve, her family's roots burn vigorously for a long time, at least three days before they are burned, which means that her family's incense is prosperous, wealth is prosperous, and the beautiful and beautiful praise Zheng Dongye is capable, after all, such a thick old tree root is difficult to meet.

In addition, the surname Zheng also has many children and difficulties, compared to Shengyang's family, life is a little better. Although they don't visit the door on the first day of the new year, they are all members of the Zheng family, so they don't care about everything. After setting off firecrackers and eating breakfast, the sun came out and shone on the people, so they gathered in the yard to play games.

A few sturdy young men pulled him by the limbs and played the game of "oil bump (before the machine, the rapeseed oil production process needed to be pushed with a thick wooden stick before the oil was released)". Those who are hit are bound to be scared, but it's really exciting.

Like Shengnan, who has more strength, he likes to challenge the game of resisting the bar, and the two put a cedar pole about 1.5 meters thick with a small bowl of thickness under their respective front crotches and hold it with their hands. After each of them has stood firm, the referee will start to attack the opponent, attacking and defending at the same time. If you have little strength, you won't be able to bear being forced back by Shengnan to admit defeat. If you meet someone who does not admit defeat, you will arrive all the way, from the end of the courtyard to the end of the courtyard, and even turn a few times until both sides are exhausted, which is the most exciting. Everyone next to him will cheer for their respective camps.

Shengnan is very good at resisting the bar, but he is not as powerful as Qingshan when he breaks his wrist, and he loses every challenge. The strength of Qingshan's wrist is better than that of many men, including Wang Cheng. The boy in the yard still likes to play with him, he is really good except for some caution, he is a tall and mighty man, he only wears an autumn coat and a Zhongshan coat in winter, and his feet are barefoot with straw sandals. Others thought he was cold, but he never had chilblains when he sweated on the soles of his feet, which is estimated to be a long-term exercise without shoes. They have lived like savages since they were young, and when they were hungry, they ate fruit when they saw fruit on the trees, garlic and cowpeas in the ground, and green onions and fruits were plucked and eaten raw. After the land was settled, he was able to work, he was well fed, he grew stronger and stronger, and he was free from disease and disaster.

A few older people play old (long) cards, eighty-four cards, which contain "heaven, earth and people", respectively with heaven nine, earth eight, man seven, and five. There are two kinds of pips, black and red, with four cards each, and the rest is the long card and the unit card, which are also four cards each. Generally, three or four people play together, and when they lose, they squat and don't get up until they win.

After playing firecrackers, children play games such as bumping legs, blowing bamboo leaves, slingshots, pulling carts, hide and seek, etc., and the activities are still very rich. In particular, the pockets and trouser pockets are stuffed with sugar, melon seeds, peanuts, fried soybeans, beans, etc., and the most stingy children will generously take them out and share them together, which is the greatest joy of the New Year.

Shengyang is weak in all of these, he can't beat it, he can't break it, he can only play chess. But almost all the mantras of chess ("car" go straight, "horse" step on evil, "elephant" Zi Feitian "cannon" is separated, and "pawn" Zi can not be provoked when crossing the river) can almost be recited, but I don't know how to recognize those Chinese characters. Therefore, there are not many people who fight against Shengyang, and Shengyang almost wins.

Today is the showdown between Shengyang and Shengli, those who know words and those who don't know words come to join in the fun, the chess pieces are made by Shengnan, the words are engraved by Shengyang, and the chessboard is painted by Shengli. The chessboard is relatively large, and it is just right to sit on the big table where you just broke your wrists.

In the first set, Shengli deliberately used a few capable generals to lure Shengyang to eat, and he kept three "pawns" to cross the river, and when Shengyang was complacent, the three "pawns" were not far from his "handsome". Seeing this, Shengyang knew that he was doomed, and he was blocked in a dead end within a few steps.

Sheng Li thought about it, Sheng Yang is too good in his heart, and entertainment will let him, so it is better to change his way, if he wins, he will also lose face. As a result, the second and third games were all won by Shengyang, and everyone praised Shengyang for his strength and defeated all the high school students.

Shengli deliberately coquettishly said that Shengyang was too cunning, and she didn't find that the "car" and "horse" were guarding her "general" at the same time, and there was a "cannon" in the middle, which was simply forced to a dead end. Shengyang knew that he had won a fluke, it was Shengli who deliberately released the water, and everyone was happy during the New Year, and he also pretended to be happy. Shengli doesn't hope that he can forget the unpleasant things in the laughter, start a new year and a new journey!