Tet is the most important annual festival in Vietnam, both culturally and spiritually. It is marked by a four-day public holiday. But the preparation for Tet starts a full month ahead and continues until the seventh day of the new year. About ten to fifteen days before Tet, people begin shopping for the holiday. Square or hexagonal cardboard candy box bearing "Happy New Year" is a must-have for every household on its ancestral altar. A great variety of calendars are available in the market and hung in every house as an ornament. Calendars have almost replaced the old custom of hanging couplets in Chinese calligraphy. Flowering branches and small trees are brought into homes during the holidays. The favorites are peach branches and small potted mandarin trees. The apricot blossom or mai flower is very popular in the South.
In tradition, Tet commences on the twenty-third day of the twelfth month when the Kitchen Gods, the three Ong Tao, are worshiped and travel to heaven to give an annual report of the family they inhabit. A bowl of three small carps is offered to be ridden by the gods for their journey to see the Heavenly King. Rice cake is an essential food to Tet for offering on ancestral altars and giving as gift exchanges between kins and friends. Cylindrical rice cakes (Banh tet) are popular in the South, while square rice cakes (Banh chung) are popular in the North. In the past, it was a tedious task to make rice cakes as people boiled the cakes ten to twelve hours over fires in a large open space. Today rice cakes can be bought in shops or ordered in advance. "Five-fruit tray" (Mam ngu qua) is another common offering on the ancestral altar, which symbolizes the "good fortune and prosperity hoped for" in the new year.
On the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth day of the last lunar month, ancestral graves are visited and tidied. In the late afternoon of the last day of the old year or the first day of the new year, families hold a ceremony to "honor the ancestors and invite them to enjoy Tet with the living family." The ancestors will protect the family throughout the new year. Family will visit father's or mother's lineages on the first and second days, and visit teachers or former teachers on the third day of Tet. On the first day of the new year, temples and shrines are full of people. Religious activities also take place at certain sites dedicated to former national or regional heroes.
In rural area, a neu tree, "a long bamboo pole with a pineapple at the top, decorated with a bell, lantern, and flags," would be raised outside the house once the Kitchen God has been sent off. Taking down of the neu tree marks the ending of the celebration on the seventh day of the first lunar month.
