Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The 15th day of the new year is called the Lantern Festival, which is celebrated at night with lantern displays and children carrying lanterns in a parade. The Chinese calendar is based on a combination of lunar and solar movements. The lunar cycle is about 29.5 days. In order to "catch up" with the solar calendar the Chinese insert an extra month once every few years (seven years out of a 19-yearcycle). This is the same as adding an extra day on leap year. This is why, according to the solar calendar, the Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year. New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are celebrated as a family affair, a time of reunion and thanksgiving. The celebration was traditionally highlighted with a religious ceremony given in honor of Heaven and Earth, the gods of the household and the family ancestors. The sacrifice to the ancestors, the most vital of all the rituals, united the living members with those who had passed away. Departed relatives are remembered with great respect because they were responsible for laying the foundations for the fortune and glory of the family.(found this article from this website http://www.theholidayspot.com/chinese_new_year/)........

                                                                                There are photo's of chinese new year rabbits 

 

For other traditions of celebrating lunar new year, see Lunar New Year.

Chinese New Year
Traditional Chinese	農曆新年
Simplified Chinese	农历新年
Literal meaning	Agrarian Calendar New Year
[show]Transliterations Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin nóng lì xīn nián Cantonese - Jyutping nung4 lik6 san1 nin4
Spring Festival
Traditional Chinese	春節
Simplified Chinese	春节
[show]Transliterations Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin chūn jié the spring festival

Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year's Eve in Meizhou, Guangdong, China
Also called	Lunar New Year, Spring Festival
Observed by	Chinese communities worldwide[1]
Type	Cultural, Religious (Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian)
Significance	The first day of the Chinese calendar (lunar calendar)
2011 date	February 3
2012 date	January 23
Celebrations	Dragon dances/Lion dances, fireworks, family gathering, family meal, visiting friends and relatives (拜年), giving red envelopes, decorating with duilian (對联).
Related to	Lantern Festival, which concludes the celebration of the New Year. Mongolian New Year, Tibetan New Year, Japanese New Year, Korean New Year, Vietnamese New Year

This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is often inaccurately called "Lunar New Year", because—as part of the lunisolar Chinese calendar—the date is partially determined based on lunar phase. The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the Chinese calendar and ends with Lantern Festival which is on the 15th day. Chinese New Year's Eve, a day where Chinese families gather for their annual reunion dinner, is known as chú xī (除夕). It literally means "Year-pass Eve".
Chinese New Year is the longest and most important festivity in the Chinese Lunar Calendar. The origin of Chinese New Year is itself centuries old and gains significance because of several myths and traditions. Ancient Chinese New Year is a reflection on how the people behaved and what they believed in the most.
Chinese New Year is celebrated in countries and territories with significant Chinese populations, such as Mainland China, Hong Kong,^[2] Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore,^[3] Taiwan, Vietnam, and also in Chinatowns elsewhere. Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and has had influence on the new year celebrations of its geographic neighbors, as well as cultures with whom the Chinese have had extensive interaction. These include Koreans (Seollal), Tibetans and Bhutanese (Losar), Mongolians (Tsagaan Sar), Vietnamese (Tết), and the Japanese before 1873 (Oshogatsu).
In countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States, although Chinese New Year is not an official holiday, many ethnic Chinese hold large celebrations and Australia Post, Canada Post, and the US Postal Service issue New Year's themed stamps.
Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese new year vary widely. People will pour out their money to buy presents, decoration, material, food, and clothing. It is also the tradition that every family thoroughly cleans the house to sweep away any ill-fortune in hopes to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of "happiness", "wealth", and "longevity". On the Eve of Chinese New Year, supper is a feast with families. Food will include such items as pigs, ducks, chicken and sweet delicacies. The family will end the night with firecrackers. Early the next morning, children will greet their parents by wishing them a healthy and happy new year, and receive money in red paper envelopes. The Chinese New Year tradition is a great way to reconcile; forgetting all grudges, and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone.
Although the Chinese calendar traditionally does not use continuously numbered years, outside China its years are often numbered from the reign of the Yellow Emperor, Huangdi. But at least three different years numbered 1 are now used by various scholars, making the year 2011 "Chinese Year" 4709, 4708, or 4648.^[4]