What Will Fortune Bring You During Year of the Boar?

Time to crack open a fortune cookie and see what the Year of the Boar has in store for you. Chinese New Year begins Sunday, the first day of the first lunar month of the year. The Chinese holiday ends 15 days later with Lantern Festival, the Chinese equivalent of Valentine's Day. For Chinese, the New Year celebration is a time for visiting and reuniting with family.

According to ancient Chinese legend, the nian, a man-eating beast, would descend from the mountains, silently creeping into houses to feast on humans. As it was sensitive to loud noise and the color red, villagers painted their window panes red and set off fireworks to scare the beast away. These customs led to the first New Year celebrations. Guo nian, “to celebrate the new year” in Chinese, literally means “the Passing of the nian beast.”

Chinese scrub down their homes in the days before the New Year begins, but put away their brooms and dust pans on New Year’s Eve so that luck cannot be swept away. Traditionalists put a new coat of red paint on window panes, and parents give red-wrapped packets of money to their children as a promise of prosperity. Strings of firecrackers encased in red paper are set off to scare away evil spirits.

Your fortune will read: "The future looks bright!" when you buy your stamps at County Stamp Center. The 24-stamp Chinese New Year sheetlet shown was issued by the U.S. in 2005. Set against a red background decorated with lucky bamboo, each stamp features the stylized symbol of a recent new year celebration, from the Year of the Rat in 1996 to this year's Year of the Boar. Click the post title to order. No matter what your future holds, you'll find it in stamps at County Stamp Center! Visit our website for all your philatelic needs.