Tết Nguyên Đán Canh Dần 2010

Tết is the biggest and the most sacred festival. It is the most attractive to a majority of the Vietnamese.
Tết falls on a time when the old year is over and the New Year comes by lunar calendar. This is also the time when the cycle of the universe finishes: winter ends and spring, the season of birth of all living things, comes.
Tết Nguyên Đán , more commonly known by its shortened name Tết, is the most important and popular holiday and festival in Vietnam. It is the Vietnamese New Year marking the arrival of spring based on the Lunar calendar, a lunisolar calendar. The name Tết Nguyên Đán is Sino-Vietnamese for Feast of the First Morning, derived from the Hán nôm characters 節元旦.

Officially, the national holiday of Tet lasts for three days. However, in practice it is closer to a week or ten days, as many celebrations occur before this date in the south of Viet Nam and after this date in the north of Viet Nam.

Tết is celebrated on the same day as Chinese New Year though exceptions arise due to the one-hour time difference between Hanoi and Beijing. It takes place from the first day of the first month of the Lunar calendar (around late January or early February) until at least the third day. Tết shares many of the same customs of its Chinese counterpart, having been derived from it. Many Vietnamese prepare for Tết by cooking special holiday foods and cleaning the house. There are a lot of customs practiced during Tết, like visiting a person's house on the first day of the new year (xông nhà), ancestral worshipping, wishing New Year's greetings, giving lucky money to children and elderly people, and opening a shop.
Narga wishes peace and happiness for everyone during the Year of the Tiger.