The Chinese New Year is a time of celebration, renewal and prosperity. It is also a time to harmonize your home and workspace with the energy of the new lunar cycle. Feng Shui is an ancient art and science that teaches how to balance the flow of chi (life force) in your environment.
By applying some simple Feng Shui tips, you can attract good luck, health and happiness for the year ahead. In this article, we will share 22 easy ways to Feng Shui your space for the Chinese New Year 2024.
Here’s to Prepare Your Home for Chinese New Year 2024:
1. To welcome the Chinese New Year with a fresh and positive energy, it is customary to clean your home thoroughly before the festival. This means making every room in the house neat and tidy. On New Year’s Eve, all cleaning tools such as brooms, brushes, and dust rags should be stored away. It is believed that sweeping or dusting on New Year’s Day would sweep away good fortune along with the dirt. Therefore, it is best to avoid cleaning on the first day of the Chinese New Year to preserve good luck in the house.
2. To celebrate the arrival of the new year, it is a tradition to light up sandalwood incense, place bowls of water with safflower petals, and ring a Tibetan bell on the first day of the lunar calendar. This practice is believed to cleanse the home of negative energy and attract positive energy. During this process, chant prayers or mantras, which can further increase the positive energy of your home and prepare you for the upcoming year.
3. To welcome the Chinese New Year 2024, you can decorate your home with some auspicious symbols that attract good luck and prosperity. For example, you can hang a red banner with the Chinese character for “fortune” (福) on your door or wall, or place a statue of a dragon in your living room. The dragon is a powerful and majestic creature that represents success and abundance. Another way to enhance your love and marriage luck is to display a pair of mandarin ducks in your bedroom or in the southwest corner of your home. Mandarin ducks are faithful and loyal to their mates, and they symbolize harmony and happiness in relationships.
4. Hang a red ribbon on your front door to attract good luck and keep negative energy away. Place a mirror in your living room or dining room to reflect good luck and prosperity into the home.
5. Cook a delicious meal with auspicious ingredients and share it with your loved ones. If you cannot be with your family, you can still invite your friends who are like family to you and enjoy the festive atmosphere together. This will bring you good luck, happiness and harmony in the Year of the Dragon.
6. 2024 Wealth Bowl – place a glass or ceramic bowl (with coins) next to your house door. Every time you have loose change, place them in the Wealth Bowl to symbolically accumulate wealth.
7. One of the feng shui tips for the Chinese New Year 2024 is to keep the rice jar and the sugar box in the kitchen full and covered. This symbolizes abundance and prosperity for the whole year. You can also place some coins or bills inside the rice jar or the sugar box to activate the energy of wealth and success. Remember to thank the rice and the sugar for nourishing you and your family, and wish them a happy new year too!
8. Homemade sweets and cakes are essential to the New Year’s Eve meal. Dragon- shaped cookies are particularly fitting for the year of the Dragon and are thought to attract luck, prosperity, happiness, and good health in the coming year. So, include them in your feast and enjoy the sweet taste of good fortune.
9. The “Tray of Togetherness” is a traditional Chinese New Year delicacy; it is a tray filled with eight different types of snacks that symbolize abundance and prosperity. These snacks typically include pecan nuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts, almonds, peach kernels, plums, apricots, walnuts, and small ingots. Sweets can also be added to the tray. This tray is often served to guests or given as a gift during the Chinese New Year celebrations, it is a symbol of sharing good fortune and abundance with loved ones.
You must have these lucky fruits on the table on New Year’s Eve: pineapples, round fruits for endless prosperity, oranges for gold, grapes hanging on windows and door jambs, mango for strong family ties, and lemon to remove the negative vibes.
10 . If you want to attract wealth and prosperity in the Year of the Dragon, it is best to avoid lending money on New Year’s Eve. According to feng shui principles, this can create a negative energy pattern that will affect your finances throughout the year. Instead, you can offer gifts or blessings to your loved ones, or donate to a worthy cause. This will create a positive energy flow that will bring you abundance and happiness.
11.At midnight, open the doors and windows for 10 minutes so that the passing year can let in the new coming year. Light fireworks on New Year’s Eve to scare away evil spirits
12. Also, at midnight, a common practice is the “Flags of wishes” ritual: write down nine wishes on rectangular pieces of paper and hang them in a tree or taller plant outside (in the garden or on the deck); carried by the wind, it is said they will reach the sky faster, and they will get fulfilled during that respective year.
13. Place in the North-East corner (the corner of wealth), on a table or chair, a tray with 4 cups (full of tea) and a kettle of warm, sweet tea to invite into your home the four kings from the four corners, which will bring you luck throughout 2024.
14. If you have a fish tank, the lucky number of fish in 2024 is 8: seven reddish goldfish and one blackfish. The reddish fishes symbolize prosperity, good fortune, and yang energy. The purpose of the blackfish is to absorb the negative energy from your house.
15. It is considered bad luck to greet someone in the bedroom; this is why everyone, even the sick, gets dressed and sits in the living room to welcome guests. During this day, knives or scissors are not used because there is a risk of accidentally “cutting” the luck.
16. Your color preferences will reflect the love and peace you desire. It’s our energy that translates into the color we choose.
Traditionally, red is the lucky color to wear on this day (to attract peace and love). Red, orange, and yellow are all warm colors. Warm colors often evoke feelings of happiness, optimism, and energy.
17. Moving 22 objects around the house will attract fortune. They don’t have to be big, just some objects you can easily change their place.
18. For Chinese New Year, buy lucky flowers or plants (orchids, hyacinths, peonies, lucky bamboo) and place them in your home to attract luck and prosperity in the coming year.
19. Give red envelopes filled with money as gifts to children and unmarried adults, as it is believed to bring good luck and wealth.
20. Avoid using negative words and phrases, as they are believed to bring bad luck.
21. To be lucky and get a better-paid job, you need to take 22 objects from the house and donate or sell them. Thus, you will free some space and attract new things.
22. Stepping into the Chinese New Year, it is befitting to send messages of thanks and wishes of health and happiness to your loved ones for the coming year. Here are some examples of auspicious greetings:
- “Wishing you Health, Happiness, and Success!”
- “Wishing you a Happy New Year with the hope that you will have many blessings in the year to come.”
- “Out with the old, in with the new: may you be happy the whole year through. Happy New Year!”
- Kung Hei Fat Choy / Gong Xi Fa Cai
Happy New Year of the Wood Dragon 2024!