Tet is the biggest and the most sacred festival. It is the most attractive to a majority of the Vietnamese. Tet 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. Tet is an occasion for pilgrims and family reunions. It is a time when one pays respect to his/her ancestors and grandparents who have brought up him/her. It is an occasion when everyone sends each other best wishes for a new year, stops thinking about unhappy things and says good things about each other.

Tet Nguyen Dan is more popularly known as Tet and is celebrated on the 1st day of the 1st month of the lunar calendar. The celebrations for New Year’s Day in Vietnam are one of the most celebrated Vietnam festivals & events which last for 7 days. Tet as it is also fondly called is also a very important festival as it provides one of the few breaks in the agricultural year. Vietnam New Year is celebrated between the harvesting of the crops and the sowing of the new crops.

The Vietnamese people begin their preparations for the New Year well in advance of the Tet Nguyen Dan. In order to get rid of the bad fortune, if any, associated with the old year the Vietnamese people clean their homes, utensils and sometime paint their homes as well. They buy new clothes and shoes, pay their pending debts and resolve the differences between families and friends.

Like the Chinese the Vietnamese people also believe that the events and works that they do on the eve of Tet Nguyen Dan in Vietnam determines their luck for the rest of the year. Hence everything that they do on this day should symbolize good fortune. On the 23rd day of the twelfth month by lunar calendar, there is a rite to see Tao Quan (Kitchen God) off. The Kitchen God Tao Quan is paid homage on this day as they believe that the three legs of the traditional cooking equipment in the kitchen represent three gods. Besides, gifts are also exchanged between family members and friends and relatives are visited during this period.

The rite to say goodbye to the old year is held on the 30th or 29th day (if that month has only 29 days) of the twelfth month by lunar calendar. The rite to welcome the New Year is held at midnight that day.

The special festive food during the Tet Nguyen Dan is rice pudding or Banh Tet .Along with this there are preserved sweets, beef, chicken, fish and fruits especially watermelons because of their red color which is considered lucky. The Vietnamese families’ plant a bamboo tree called Cay New in their courtyard during the Tet Nguyen Dan This is decorated with bells, flowers and red streamers to guard them against bad luck and let good fortune flow into their homes all year through.

There are various customs practiced during Tet such as ancestral worshipping, visiting a person’s house on the first day of the new year, wishing Tet wishes, giving lucky money to young children and old people, wishing longevity to the oldest people, opening rice paddies or opening a shop. The rite to see off ancestral souls to return to the other world is often held on the 3rd day of the first month by lunar calendar when the Tet holidays finish and everybody goes back to work.