These kids picked up duds and ran out to the street to light them.
Zhu Ping chased after him and said, "Put it somewhere far away, away from the haystacks. It would be great if it snowed in the next couple of days."
Decades later, a skit joked that someone's mouth was blessed.
Wan Feng believed that his uncle's mouth must be blessed, so after he said this, the snow fell silently on the night of the 27th.
On the morning of the 28th, Wan Feng opened the door and saw that the top of the mountain was white, the trees were covered with white robes, and the earth was pure white.
We have to clear the snow again.
He won’t make a snowman this time because it’s cold!
Every household was sweeping the snow. After the yard and the streets were cleared, my grandfather and uncle began to prepare the sacrificial items.
Nowadays, no one cares about these things that were once called feudal superstitions. Almost every household has a big blessing character or a family tree.
This big character "Fu" is not the one pasted on the wall. This kind of character "Fu" used for sacrifices is more than one meter long and sixty to seventy centimeters wide.
In the early years, it was mounted with several layers of paper, and later it was made of cloth.
When a big character "Fu" is hung up, there should be a horizontal banner with a large color on it and an offering table below it. Candlesticks and incense burners should be placed on the offering table. From the beginning of the New Year's Eve to the third day of the New Year, candles and incense are lit on the offering table.
The family tree is also such a thing, but it is complicated because the names of ancestors have to be filled in on it.
After the Four Olds Movement, many families' family trees no longer existed, and the names of ancestors that could be remembered were limited to the previous one or two generations. Therefore, this year, when people asked for family tree genealogies, the names on the trees were sparse and no more than four or five names.
Wan Feng's grandfather has a good memory. He not only remembers his father, mother, grandparents, but even two generations before him.
So there are more than ten names on his family tree.
But this has nothing to do with Wan Feng. He is an outsider and cannot rely on the gift of other people's ancestors. Therefore, he can only watch and has no right to take action.
My uncle first pasted a large scroll on the beam, and then pasted a horizontal scroll with the words "This branch will last for generations, be famous through the ages, and have a long history", and then hung the family tree.
Wan Feng didn't pay attention to the other rituals involved in hanging the family tree because they seemed boring to him, so he ran out to play in the river behind.
After the children at the east end set off their duds, they all ran to the river to play.
When he first came here last year, he had a conflict with Yang Hai on the ice. Looking back now, his actions were a bit ridiculous.
I played until noon and then went home for lunch.
After dinner, every household started to put up couplets and New Year pictures.
Wan Feng would not run out even if his hands would get frozen pasting couplets. Instead, he took out the couplets and New Year pictures he had prepared and shocked everyone in the room.
"How many New Year pictures did you buy?" Zhu Ping looked at the bundle of New Year pictures in surprise, his jaw almost dropping.
"Not many, not many, only sixty."
He bought a total of 120 New Year pictures, and the remaining 60 were of course at Luan Feng's house.
"Sixty! Holy crap!"
Zhu Ping secretly groaned, how long would it take to put up all these New Year pictures? He even wanted to go play in the ditch. If he had known that this unreliable nephew had bought so many New Year pictures, why would he need drawing paper to paste the walls? Wouldn't it be better to just use this stuff to paste the walls directly? New Year pictures cover a large area and save trouble.
The troops were divided into two groups, Zhu Ping and his aunt were responsible for pasting the couplets and blessing characters outside, while Wan Feng was responsible for pasting New Year pictures inside the house.
There are eight New Year pictures pasted one next to the other in two rows on the wall at the head of the kang. These pictures are all related to the word "longevity", such as the old man with a protruding forehead, leaning on a cane and holding a big peach, and the little kid with a bald head and a boat bellyband jumping around while carrying a big peach.
This drawing has no scientific basis at all. How can such a small child jump around while carrying such a big peach?
Wan Feng doesn’t believe it!
There are also eight pictures pasted on the wall at the end of the kang where Wan Feng lives. There are no peaches on this wall, but children carrying guns pretending to be soldiers.
In his previous life, his mother never met his requests for New Year pictures, but now he can fulfill his wish.
Including the four stickers on the north wall, there are twenty stickers in one room.
My aunt also pasted twenty stickers in her room, but my uncle didn't put any in his room, so my aunt-in-law had to design it herself. She might have her own design requirements for the number of stickers.
When the couplets and New Year pictures were posted, grandma's house was bright and full of joy.
Wan Feng replaced all those 15-25 degree light bulbs with 100 degree bulbs.
Grandma started nagging again, asking how much electricity such a big light bulb consumes.
"You don't have to pay for it. Isn't it brighter out there? You're so shameless!" This time it was grandpa who spoke, and grandma stopped nagging.
After the depression, only a small number of households, less than half, bought Wanfeng's couplets. After these couplets were posted, those who did not buy them regretted it.
Compared with the couplets posted by those who bought them, which had treasure pots and money trees on them, the couplets they had handwritten were gray and inconspicuous at all.
Some people wanted to pay to buy it now but were told to buy it early next year.
In the blink of an eye, it is already the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month.
The lunch on the 30th is the most sumptuous meal of the year for every family.
The customs of this meal vary from place to place. In some areas, it is eaten at the afternoon of the 30th, and in some areas, it is eaten on the first day of the New Year. In southern Liaoning, the best meal of the year is eaten at noon on the 30th.
Wan Feng did not go to bed to wait for dinner, but was working on the half sheep with his uncle.
At grandma's house, both the east and west pots are busy.
The five best parts of mutton are the top of the head, big three forks, small three forks, ground part and cucumber strips, which are kept for hot pot.
Then I picked some mutton and put it in the pot to cook. If the mutton is cooked like this, it will have a strong smell, so I grabbed a handful of hawthorn and threw it into the mutton pot, so that most of the smell will be removed.
Remove the meat when it is 80% cooked.
Pour oil into a hot pan and heat over low heat. Then stir-fry the chopped ginger slices until they turn darker and curl up. Add the mutton and stir-fry for a while. Add rice wine and water and throw in a few pieces of tofu. Cover the pot and simmer for about ten minutes. Finally, add the seasonings and mix well.
For mutton, Wan Feng would make this dish, stewed mutton with ginger. After finishing this dish, he would go to make sweet and sour pork ribs.
These are his favorite dishes and he can also cook them.
Lunch begins.
First, seven dishes were served: lamb stewed with ginger, chicken stewed with mushrooms, beef stewed with radish, sweet and sour spare ribs, meat stewed with tofu, stir-fried cabbage with meat, and braised beef.
Then Zhu Ping brought the lit hot pot and placed it in the middle of the newly bought round table at grandma's house.
The whole family sat around the table.
Grandma sat in the front seat, followed by her uncle, aunt, and aunt, and Wan Feng sat at the last seat.
Men drink alcohol, women drink.
The drink is kvass bought by Wanfeng, but you can buy other ones. Kvass is quite high-end.
Grandpa and uncle drank white wine, but Wan Feng didn't drink white wine and just drank beer.
He bought a case of beer before the New Year to drink during the Spring Festival.
Grandpa's toast was nothing more than a set phrase about how well our family did last year and we should keep up the good work next year.
After saying these two sentences, he started eating.
Wan Feng began to introduce the tips of hot pot mutton, and what kind of mutton is best for hot pot. It cannot be too overcooked or it will lose its flavor, and it cannot be too tender as some bacteria on the mutton will not be killed and it will be difficult to eat.
Zhu Ping doesn't care about all this. He just eats it first, whether it's raw or cooked.
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