Today is the Yuan Xiao festival, also called Lantern Festival. The Lantern Festival is the first full moon night of the new Lunar year calendar.
This marks the end of the New Year celebrations, marking the return of spring and symbolizing the reunion of family.
There is a story about the Lantern Festival. A beautiful heavenly bird flew down a village and was killed. The God of Heaven was very angry and wanted to burn down the entire village on the 15th lunar day. One wise villager advised every family hang candle lanterns around the house, carry lanterns on the street, and light fireworks outside on the 15th lunar night. The soldiers of the God of Heaven saw the village was on fire from the heaven, and returned back to the heaven. The village survived and people keep the lantern activity on this day every year.
Lantern owners write riddles on paper notes and pasted them upon the colorful lanterns. People crowd round to guess the riddles. If someone thinks they have the right answer, they can pull the riddle off and go to the lantern owner to check their answer. If the answer is right, there is usually a small gift as a prize. To close out the holiday, please enjoy this lantern riddle from ACME: For me, I slap you. Because of you, I slap me. Hitting your skin, My blood flows.
The Haus of Dcaligari 