Lantern Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the fifteenth day of the Chinese New Year, marking the final day of new year celebrations. This year, Lantern Festival falls on February 12, 2025.
Chinese Lantern Festival is earmarked with celebrations that make a grand spectacle. Normally, the festivities occur at night in order to fully relish the colours of the spectacles.The obvious activity is the lighting of lanterns. They traditionally come in round shapes, but as the festival goes hand-in-hand with Chinese New Year, the lanterns also come in animal shapes based on the zodiac animal of the year. Sometimes, riddles with messages of wisdom or fortune are written on the lanterns for viewers to crack.
Crowds gather to view colourful light installations of what seems like hundreds of hanging lanterns or prosperous symbols like dragons and gold taels put on display in parks.
Another celebrations that take place during Lantern Festival is uniting with loved ones over a delicious bowl of sweet glutinous rice dumplings, a.k.a. tang yuan. Tang yuan soup dumplings filled with sesame, red bean, or peanut paste are eaten with family as their round shape is symbolic of unity.
Lantern Festival, holiday celebrated in China and other Asian countries that honours deceased ancestors on the 15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar. The Lantern Festival aims to promote reconciliation, peace, and forgiveness. The holiday marks the first full moon of the new lunar year and the end of the Chinese New Year . During the festival, houses are festooned with colourful lanterns, often with riddles written on them; if the riddle is answered correctly, the solver earns a small gift. Festival celebrations also include lion and dragon dances, parades, and fireworks. Small glutinous rice balls filled with fruits and nuts, called yuanxiao or tangyuan, are eaten during the festival. The round shape of the balls symbolizes wholeness and unity within the family.
