The Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese people and is when all family members get together, just like Christmas in the West. All people living away from home go back, becoming the busiest time for transportation systems of about half a month from the Spring Festival. Airports, railway stations and long-distance bus stations are crowded with home returnees.
The Spring Festival falls on the 1st day of the 1st lunar month, often one month later than the Gregorian calendar. It originated in the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC-c. 1100 BC) from the people's sacrifice to gods and ancestors at the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one.
Strictly speaking, the Spring Festival starts every year in the early days of the 12th lunar month and will last till the mid 1st lunar month of the next year. Of them, the most important days are Spring Festival Eve and the first three days. The Chinese government now stipulates people have seven days off for the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Christmas Day, the 25th of December, is the biggest festival celebrated in the Christian countries of the world. Christmas regard this day as the birthday of Jesus Christ, but many of the customs and celebrations are not of a religious1 nature.
In the large shops preparations for Christmas are begun five or six weeks before the actual day. Shop owners like Christmas because it is a time when people exchange2 presents. This means more goods are bought than at any other time of the year. In larger towns decorations3 are put up in the main street two or three weeks before Christmas---usually these decorations are lit up at night.
Preparations are also made at home. Special puddings and cakes are eaten on Christmas Day and these have to be made three or four weeks in advance4. Two or three days before Christmas, people decorate their houses with paper decorations and leaves and branches. People also like to have a Christmas tree in the living room. This is a very small fir tree decorated with silver paper and colored lights.
Although everyone enjoys Christmas Day, it is particularly5 enjoyed by children, who get very excited because of the presents they know they are going to receive. Small children believe that their presents are brought by Father Christmas. Father Christmas is a kind old man who, the children are told, lives at the North Pole. He travels through the sky on a sledge6 which is pulled by reindeer7 and loaded with presents. Stopping on the roofs of houses, he enters by climbing down the chimney. When small children go to bed on Christmas Eve, they hang a stocking at the end of their beds. The parents warn them not to try to look at Father Christmas or he will not leave them anything. When they wake up, they find their stockings filled with presents. Children are very excited on Christmas morning and always wake up early.
Christmas is Britain and the United States oldest and most popular festival. It is with China's traditional Spring Festival does have similarities: people are careful preparations before the Festival, Ji Heka, gift-giving; festival on this day his family reunion, joy and exuberance, dinner; festival lasted for nearly two weeks after the one held at the time all kinds of celebration activities to express their love and best wishes to pass. East and West, the celebration was passed with the same festive spirit - unity, friendship, love can be described as the common pursuit of mankind.