英语作文,最喜欢的传统节日春节

英语作文,最喜欢的传统节日春节
My Favorite Traditional Holiday – The Spring Festival
The Spring Festival is my absolute favorite time of the year! It's the biggest and most important celebration in Chinese culture. Every year, I look forward to the Spring Festival and all the fun activities and traditions that come along with it.
The Spring Festival actually lasts for quite a long time –about 23 days! But the biggest celebrations happen during the first few days. It officially starts on the first day of the first month in the Chinese lunar calendar. This year, the first day of the Spring Festival was January 22nd. The festivities go on for over three weeks until the 15th day, which is the Lantern Festival.
Weeks before the Spring Festival arrives, my whole family gets really excited and starts getting ready for the celebrations. My mom goes shopping to buy lots of special holiday foods like seeds, candies, fruits, and ingredients for dumplings and other dishes. We also do a huge cleaning of our entire house to sweep away any bad luck and make way for incoming good luck.
One of my favorite traditions is putting up decorations and hanging up red couplets on our doors and windows. Written on the red paper couplets are poetic couplets with good luck
sayings and New Year wishes. We also hang up red lanterns and cut out paper decorations in the shape of the upcoming year's zodiac animal. This year is the Year of the Rabbit, so we had lots of cute rabbit decorations.
On New Year's Eve, my family has a huge reunion dinner together. This is known as the most important dinner of the year! We make lots of special dishes like dumplings, whole steamed fish, chicken, and dishes made with lucky ingredients like dried oysters and black moss. After dinner, my cousins and I light firecrackers and fireworks outside to scare away any evil spirits and welcome in the new year with lots of noise and excitement!
At midnight, we watch the big countdown celebration and fireworks show on TV. Then after the new year officially starts, it's time for the grownups to hand out red envelopes! Getting red envelopes filled with money is probably the best part for kids. The red color symbolizes luck and the money inside is a symbol of wealth and prosperity for the coming year. My grandparents and aunts and uncles always give me and my cousins lots of red envelopes. I got so many this year and can't wait to go shopping with my new money!
The first few days of the new year are reserved for visiting relatives and close friends. We go from house to house to pay
our respects to the elders and exchange greetings and well wishes for the new year. Some of the greetings we say are "Xin Nian Kuai Le!" which means "Happy New Year!" and "Gong Xi Fa Cai" which means "Wishing you prosperity!" The adults are also supposed to give money to the unmarried people as a symbol of luck.
Another fun part of the Spring Festival is getting to watch special TV programs and movies. The TV channels air awesome 24-hour marathon shows with comedy skits, magic acts, acrobatics, songs, and dances. My favorite is always the Spring Festival Gala put on by CCTV. I get to stay up super late to watch it with my family every year!
Of course, we can't forget about all the delicious Spring Festival foods! In addition to the dumplings and fish we have for the reunion dinner, there are also lots of tasty snacks and sweets.
I especially love the little sesame seed balls, coconut candies, peanuts, melon seeds, and candied fruit and nuts. Some families eat nian gao, which is a sticky sweet rice cake that symbolizes having a great upcoming year. My grandma always buys me my favorite jelly candies and chocolate coins wrapped in red and gold foil.
Towards the end of the Spring Festival is the Lantern Festival on the 15th day. This is celebrated by enjoying yuanxiao dumplings, lighting lanterns, watching dragon dances, and setting off firecrackers. Some people try solving clever riddles written on the lanterns. At school, we get to make our own lanterns and eat sweet sticky rice balls to mark the end of the new year festivities.
After the Lantern Festival, it's back to regular life. But the Spring Festival celebrations are always the highlight of my year! I love learning about the rich traditions and spending quality time with my family. The red decorations, firecrackers, lion dances, yummy foods, and red envelopes make it such a memorable and exciting few weeks. I can't wait until next year's Spring Festival to do it all over again! What's your favorite part of the holiday?。