Look for the "taste of the year", cut the window flowers

Text | Li Hao

In recent years, the topic of "New Year's flavor" has become particularly popular. People say that the New Year is now more and more devoid of a sense of ceremony, no taste, no atmosphere, and even the cultural feast "Spring Festival Gala" choreographed by CCTV is gradually unable to satisfy people's appetites. Material wealth is great, chicken, duck, fish meat, mountain treasures and seafood do not have to be made by themselves. Whenever the New Year comes, the business of major hotels is booming, hotel meals have become a fashion for the New Year, and even to show off the way of filial piety to parents, it seems that the more upscale the hotel, the more expensive the meal, the more can show filial piety and self. Some people say that the taste of the New Year is tasted, some people say that it is smelled, and some people say that it is spent with money. And I dare not agree, prefer the atmosphere of the New Year when I was a child, the "New Year's taste" I am talking about here is more of an aftertaste of the people and things of that year, and the New Year's taste reminds me of the happiness of "cutting window flowers" with my grandmother when I was a child.

Grandma's craftsmanship is not particularly superb, the window flowers she cut are nothing more than a few, such as trumpet blowing people, snowflakes, lucky characters, magpies climbing branches, all kinds of small animals, but they add too much joy to us.

As soon as she entered the Moon Gate, she was busy. Turning over the cabinets, he took out the large basket in the cabinet and a roll of colored paper of various colors. The knife fell in her hand, and with the sound of "clicking and clicking", a little person with a trumpet came to life on her hand, vividly appeared, and in her low-headed movements, I could not see the usual roughness, at that time, I actually envied her craftsmanship, and clamored for grandma to teach me.

(Image from the Internet)

Grandma taught me to cut window flowers to start from the middle, first cut a small hole, a small gap, and then slowly cut a burr thorn, shear thorns, teeth and teeth are the most common kung fu, the burr is finer and sharper the better. All hollowed out places should be cut smoothly and smoothly, and there can be no phenomenon of dragging mud with water. The cat in the animal is the highest level of well cut, the cat's body should be cut into a body full of sharp and thin burrs; the plum blossoms in the flowers are the most test of human craftsmanship, and the plum blossoms should be cut out of various forms, and there must be buds to be released, half-open, and blooming. Grandma said that you don't think that cutting window flowers is an easy task, when we hold scissors to cut window flowers, we must be very careful, how deep the scissors should be, how much force should be used, we must grasp it. When I saw my grandmother cutting the window flowers, she often gritted her teeth and held her breath, and the scissors could not stop at all in the key links, you can't say, cut half a pig, tired and put down tomorrow and then cut half a pig.

The last process is to cut the periphery, the periphery is cut, the middle of the few small twisters are removed, we take the smoke sample off, ah! Look quickly, fresh cabbage, furry chickens, red dan dan dan flowers, lying, lying, lying, half squatting, running, standing and looking at the distance, healthy scalpers, chickens pecking rice with their heads down, big red roosters with cocks and vigor... I, on the other hand, cut the piglet into four and made my grandmother laugh. In this way, year after year, Grandma cut the days into these small objects, and after a few years we looked at them as if they were Pandora's box.

Grandma had never studied since she was a child, and she couldn't even write her own name. She only knows one word, and she can only write one word, which is the word "Fu". Whenever her father wrote the Spring Festival, she would gather around the table and be happy. Each time, her father would leave the word "Fu" for her to write, sometimes with more strokes and sometimes with less strokes. The big red paper with ink characters is also a bit festive. After writing it, she posted it everywhere, on the door of the house, on the window, on the door of the warehouse, and also on the door of the barn, and also posted it upside down. Once, I told her that the paste was reversed, and she actually scolded me with a calm face that I could not speak, and should say "Blessed has arrived." I think that deep down, she has been praying for the arrival of happy days.

She grinned widely and had a gentle side. Not only will various window flowers be cut, but also origami flowers. Sometimes during the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and other seasonal seasons, some big red or pink flowers are folded and hung on the mirror and on the child's cradle. Although childhood has gone far, in addition to the memory, there are still some warm past events, stopped in the past, such as the window flowers pasted on childhood memories, and the happy time I had with my grandmother at that time. And now, it's another Year's Eve, I picked up the scissors again, learned the way my grandmother looked, cut out one trick after another, and cut out the taste of the "Year" that I missed.

Chinese New Year's Eve night, RuiXue dances; pray for peace and abundance. Every household, the windows are bright and clean, and the reunion is festive. The red lanterns, the laughing and groaning Spring League, the rumbling firecrackers, the most important thing is the peony red plum on the window, the pumpkin cabbage, the flock of chickens, ducks, cows and sheep, and the souls of the swallows and magpies are blessing and singing, spreading the taste of the year for a long time!

(Weishan Rural Commercial Bank, Li Hao)

One point no. Shandong financial literature