New Year's ...Day? HA!

The Chinese must hear of other countries celebrating New Year's with a
bit of revelry, a countdown and maybe the Synge de Lang, along with one
day of rest and recoup on January 1st, and laugh at the simplicity of
it. The Chinese also celebrate the Gregorian New Year with the rest of
the world, but the big celebration is the lunar new year.
I'd heard before that it is comparable to Christmas in the States, where
people begin shopping the day after Thanksgiving (or even the evening of
Thanksgiving, from what I heard recently!) and keep their Christmas
trees up until sometime during, say, the first week of January. People
in China begin preparations for their New Year at least a week in
advance, and the 1st day of the new year--which is the first day of the
new moon--is just the start of official celebrations. It kicks off a
week of holiday from work, which is spent visiting with family and
friends. Most companies will start up again on the 7th day, blasting off
fireworks in the morning. Things are relatively quite again, until the
15th--the day of the full moon.
If anyone has any firecrackers or rockets still lying around, they are
all set off on the night of the first full moon of the year. J said that
no one lights even a sparkler after the 15th. So celebrations are out in
full force, maybe with almost as much force as on the 1st. Fireworks
blast off, bursting in the air, the blasts setting off car alarms around
the neighborhood.
So while Gregorian celebrations may countdown to midnight, in China it
is a minimum 15-day countdown. Happy New Year Days!