The Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese people. It is also the time for the whole families to get together,which is similar with Christmas Day. The Spring Festival in China can be generally divided into three steps. Before, in and after Spring Spring Festival, Chinese will do a lot of meaningfun activies. And the same time, There are many customs related to different steps:

Cleaning and Purchasing(大扫除和买年货Dàsǎochú hé Mǎi niánhuò)
Cleaning before the New Year is a tradition in Chinese culture. The grounds, the walls, even every corner of the house need to be cleaned. “Dust” is a homophone for the word "old” (Chen) in Chinese , thus cleaning means to drive the bad luck or the old things away from the house and get ready for a new start.

Then people will go shopping, purchasing new clothes and articles for the festival. Chinese people believe a year anew, so they take this chance to buy a lot of new things. Purchasing new items means welcoming the new things and getting ready for a new year.

Couplets(春联Chūnlián)
The custom of pasting couplets can be traced back to over one thousand years ago in Later Shu State (934 - 965). The original form of modern couplets is called “Taofu”, a piece of peach wood charming against evil without any words on. In Song Dynasty (960 - 1279), the antithesis began to be written on the peach wood, which expressed people’s good wishes as well as being decorations. Later, the modern form of couplets appeared by replacing peach wood with the red paper. The couplets include antithesis on two sides and a horizontal scroll bearing on the top.

Pasting the “Fu”(贴福字Tiē fú zì)
The Chinese character “Fu”, meaning good fortune or happiness, was used to express people’s good wishes and yearning for the future, so people usually paste it on the Spring Festival. Pasting the “Fu” upside down, meaning the arrival of happiness or good fortune, is widely accepted and popular custom among Chinese people. A lot of other auspicious characters and patterns are added to express good wishes, too.

In the ancient time, this character and the couplets were written by hand, but now, people can buy printed ones in shopping malls or supermarkets. Some shops even present these printed works to customers if customers purchase in their shops.

Paper-Cuts(剪纸Jiǎnzhǐ)
Paper-cut on windows is a special kind of application of paper-cuts. People always cut auspicious words or pictures on red papers and paste them on windows to express their good wishes for the future.

New Year Pictures(年画Niánhuà)
They, originated in Tang Dynasty (618 - 907), were used to drive away evils and the patterns are simple. But now being a kind of decorations for the festival, more new meanings and patterns are added to those pictures. Different places in China have different styles of pictures.

The Gods of Gate(门神Ménshén)
The Gods of Gate is a special kind of New Year pictures pasting on the doors. In Taoism and folk-custom, the Gods of the Gate, one of the most popular gods among people, are the guards of different houses. Ancient people pasted their pictures on the door to drive away evil and keep safety of the houses.

Chinese Cards(贺卡Hèkǎ)
Besides, New Year Cards are also need to be prepared before the festival. In old times, some people like sending cards to their friends, parents, teachers and other relatives during the festival especially they cannot reunite with their family members on the Spring Festival’s Eve. Words of blessing are written on the cards, just like sending Christmas cards. Now, with the advance technology, the form of cards changed, but the tradition of sending cards does not disappear.

Chinese Knots(中国结Zhōngguó jié)
Chinese knots are prepared to decorate the houses during the festival. Chinese knots were first used as string jade pendants on the clothes as decorations and these knots were widely used in different places such as flute, Xiao (a vertical bamboo flute), curtain and so on. Now these knots are used as gifts containing the blessing for other people or decorations during festival.