The Spring Festival is the most grand traditional festival in China. It is a folk festival that integrates praying for blessings and fighting disasters,celebrating entertainment and eating. The Spring Festival has a long history,which evolved from the sacrificial rites in the beginning of a year in ancient times, and carried the rich historical and cultural deposits in the inheritance.

During the Spring Festival,a variety of activities are held all over the country.There are differences in the contents or details of customs because of the different regional culture.With a long history of New Year in China, some relatively fixed customs have been formed in the inheritance and development in various places, and many of which have been handed down to the present, such as buying New Year goods, sweeping dust, pasting couplets,eating New Year eve's dinner, giving New Year's greeting,dancing dragon and lion dance, worshipping ancestors, praying for blessings and resisting disasters,visiting temple fairs,watching lanterns and so on.

The Spring Festival celebration is a continuous process, starting from the 23rd or 24th of the 12th lunar month.People often worship the Kitchen God, clean their houses, do their shopping and put up Spring Festival couplets（blessing words posted on door frames） until New Year's Eve on the lunar calendar.

These customs can be traced back to a Chinese legend.

It is said that in ancient times, there was a monster named Nian, who would come out and harm the world by the end of each lunar year.People then took measures to send the monster away, such as putting up red couplets as Nian detested the color red, and setting off fireworks and firecrackers at their doors to scare it away.

In addition to staying up late on New Year's Eve, having a New Year's Eve dinner and watching the Spring Festival Gala are two important customs of Spring Festival.

New Year's Eve dinner are manifested in different ways in different parts of China.Those in South China must have a dish of fish, because "fish in Chinese sounds similar to the character for "prosperity" symbolizing an abundant and comfortable life.Those in North China often eat dumplings, which symbolize "reunion" and "fortune".