'Why are we always happy before Tet?'

Going to the Tet market is the children's first spring trip.

Adults assigned us the task before Tet to buy flowers and ornamental plants to decorate the house, buy enough ingredients for two pots of banh chung to celebrate Tet. My parents believe that Tet now does not lack anything. Go to the market or make a phone call and all the banh chung, gio cha, candies, Tet flowers... will be delivered to the house, no need to go anywhere to buy. But what is Tet like that? And like that, when the children grow up, they will have no memories of Tet, will they still want to go "home"?

And that's right, the first spring trip before Tet with the children in our family was to follow grandparents and parents to the Tet market.

Carry spring on your shoulders

Tet markets are crowded and bustling from early morning to late at night. Flower markets, home decoration markets, and dry goods markets are open all night, serving busy customers at the end of the year, who take advantage of the late evening to stroll around and shop.

We like to visit the streets selling peach blossoms, apricot blossoms, and kumquat trees the most. The North is not too cold in the days before Tet this year, the cold is just enough to make people feel dry, enough to make peach blossoms, plum blossoms more fresh and kumquat trees full of succulent flowers to invite buyers. The children have asked to wear ao dai to go to the market to buy flowers. The Tet atmosphere is rich in the faint scent of incense, rich in the pink color of peach blossoms and peach trees everywhere.

Along the way, the children asked each other about the legend of peach blossoms, or why people buy peach blossoms, kumquats... to display in their homes on Tet, and why there are so many names for peach blossoms, such as Bich Dao, Dao Nhat Tan, Dao That Thon... Adults had the opportunity to tell stories, or sometimes hurriedly looked up Google to answer difficult questions that were no less difficult than answering customers on a normal day at work. Is that why the days before Tet are always bustling, and also the happiest days, in the hearts of children and even those who used to be children?

While washing dong leaves, children eagerly listened to many stories about Tet.

After the spring trip and finding the peach branches they liked, the children in the house started to wash the dong leaves, clean the sticky rice and mung beans, and prepare for the adults to wrap the banh chung. At this time, the question and answer topic that made the adults frantically search for answers revolved around the names of the Tet cakes; or the explanation of why rice had to be soaked, why dong leaves and banana leaves had to be used to wrap the cakes and not other leaves; why not boil the banh chung on a gas stove or an induction stove to make it faster, but instead had to split firewood and boil the banh chung on a large, hot, glowing wood stove?

My father, after finishing his work of directing and assigning tasks to everyone, would often make a pot of tea, sit back and watch his children and grandchildren busily and noisily making noise around the house, sometimes just fighting over washing leaves, or fighting over asking the adults to wrap them a small banh chung to carry around the yard to show off. Happiness for the elderly is sometimes that simple.

The pot of banh chung is ready to be boiled, the small cakes for children

Before Tet is when we can see most clearly the connection between members of a big family, who are usually far apart.

Before Tet is when we can feel the bond of love in our home. Normally, that bond may be loose and distant, but on the days leading up to Tet, we see it present in the noisy sounds of children, in the fragrant smell of winter food, in the bright red color of decorations inside and outside the house.

My little grandchildren, naturally, have all those simple things wrapped up in their hearts. So that when they grow up, they can never stop being excited when mentioning the two words "before Tet"...

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/vi-sao-truoc-tet-luc-nao-cung-vui-185240206154720137.htm