Do you know how the officials of the Song Dynasty, such as Ouyang Xiu, celebrated Chinese New Year?

The Spring Festival in the Song Dynasty was called New Year's Day, specifically referring to the first day of the first month. The Spring Festival includes three periods: busy year, Chinese New Year, and New Year (Spring). Lantern Festival is also part of the "Year".

In the Song Dynasty, the Spring Festival holiday was 7 days (usually 3 days before and after the New Year's Day). The Lantern Festival was 7 days off, and it was nearly half a month.

When Ouyang Xiu was a parent in Zhangzhou, he also had special welfare like many local civil servants. Every year, he stamped the twelfth lunar month, stopped his official duties, went home for the New Year, and celebrated with the family. He only rushed back on the first day of the second year. Tuen Mun "opening" office will do.

When Ouyang Xiu was in the DPRK and the senior civil servants in the capital, he was not allowed to take leave on the first day and could not take time off. First, keep the old age, and then take a nap. In the early morning, you have to dress neatly, wind up the wind, wear stars and wear the moon, go to the palace, and open the "Zhengdan Dachao": Baiguan gives the emperor a New Year's greeting (promise), commonly known as "rehearsing" . At the meeting, diplomats from Liao, Gaoli, Xixia, Yuxi and Huiyu often came to present. After the meeting, the emperor rewarded each person with a cap flower and inserted it on the official hat. You had to wear it when you hosted a family feast, and you also had to wear the soda wine and the soup.

In addition to meeting and playing with the emperor, he has to accompany him. Before the winter solstice, the royal family had to host a banquet. In the first day of the dynasty, I would like to have a Zhengdan banquet, which is grand in scale and allows the family members to take family members. After the ordinary pilgrimage, they also arranged to eat and drink, and the palace "buried the bill" and called "giving food." Giving food is also known as "lange meal" or "downholstery", the most famous restaurant in the Song Dynasty. "Song Hui Yao" records that the banquet seats under the gallery are arranged under the east and west corridors of the left and right Qinzhengmen. The civil servants sit on the east corridor, and the military officers sit on the west corridor. As for overtime pay, since the salary of ancient officials is mostly the annual salary system, overtime pay is not counted, but during the New Year, the emperor also has a reward.

Ordinary officials and the people must reunite the whole family, drink alcohol, eat dumplings, set off firecrackers, wear new clothes, and celebrate the New Year (the important relatives and friends come to visit the New Year, the general friends can be servants to hold the master's business card to visit the master to celebrate the New Year). On the Lunar New Year's Eve of the Song Dynasty, according to the records of "Dream of the Nightmare", people must "clean the house, change the door god, hang the bell, and nail the peach." Sticking to the door god and nailing peaches, mainly to exorcise evils and avoid disasters, pray for good luck for the New Year.

In the sixth year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1046), the first month of Ouyang Xiu wrote a poem entitled "You Qishan" during the Spring Festival holiday:

Nanshan is a foot of snow, and the snow is full of mountains.

The valley is deep and warm, and the plum blossoms should be complicated.

Let Jun ride away from the car, stay in front of the mountain.

The songs are plucked into the wild, and the steps are in the middle of the forest.

Long pines are high in shade, and the stone is drunk.

Listen to the mountain birds, and write the fountain with the piano.

Love is forgotten, but it is hard to draw.

When I return to the time, I feel that I am far away.

This poem is a true portrayal of leisure, love of Lushan, fun with the people, and ignorance during the Ouyang Taishou Spring Festival.