To welcome the New Year, each and every family used to ornate their house with red parallel sentences, from the gate to the inside. Under the Lê Dynasty, throughout the Imperial Citadel of Thăng Long, from kings, mandarins, Confucian scholars, merchants, to poor people, every house hung parallel sentences. Parallel sentences were written in black ink on red paper, symbolizing good lucks, happiness and warmth of spring days. Displaying parallel sentences was considered as a cultural quintessence and a spiritual food during the Lunar New Year festival.
In the past, people hung folk paintings in order to “see off the old, welcome the new”, expecting for good things in the New Year. After the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, every family replaced their old paintings with new ones. Popular New Year paintings were: “Chickens”, “Pigs” representing the aspiration of prosperity all the year; “Honour-Wealth” with the expectation that the family would do well, having both sons and daughters; “Buffalo”, “Cock” to receive the warmth of spring. Hàng Trống, Đông Hồ and Kim Hoàng were three famous schools of folk paintings in Thăng Long and the suburban.
Playing flowers and bonsai trees has become a good cultural tradition of Vietnamese people. Flowers and ornamental trees arearranged in different sites within a house, creating an ambiance of excitement to welcome the Lunar New Year. The altar is decorated with chrysanthemum, tagetes, gladiolus, tuberose andlucky bamboo. In the living room, there must be peach blossom, apricot blossom, orchid, bunch-flowered narcissus, dahlia, violet, gerbera, and kumquat. Each flower has its own features but they all symbolizegood lucks, prosperity and peace. This eleganthobby not only serves the demand for the scent and beauty of nature but also expressesgood wishes in the New Year.
On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, after the ritual of cleaning incense burner and ancestral altar (lễ bao sái), every family will hold the ceremony to see off the Gods of Kitchen to the Heaven. They prepare a tray of five fruits (mâm ngũ quả), jams, candies and cakes and place all of these offerings on the ancestral altar. In the afternoon of the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month, there is the year-end worshipping ceremony (lễ cúng tất niên) to inform ancestors that the old year is over. At night of the same day, each and every family performs the New Year’s Eve ceremony (lễ trừ tịch) in order to say goodbye to the Tutelary God of the Old Year and welcome the God of the New Year. In the first morning of the New Year, another worshipping ritual is carried (cúng nguyên đán). In the afternoon of the first day and on the second day, every household holds the morning and afternoon worshipping ceremonies (lễ chiêu điện and tịch điện). On the third day, most of families usually perform a kind of thanksgiving ceremony in which votive paper is burnt (lễ cúng tạ hóa vàng). The practice of worship during the Lunar New Year festival demonstrates Vietnamese people’s gratitude to their ancestors.