Tết Quý Tỵ 2013

Vietnamese New Year, more commonly known by its shortened name Tet or "Tet Nguyen Dan", is the most important and popular holiday and festival in Vietnam. It is the Vietnamese New Year marking the arrival of spring based on the Chinese calendar, a lunisolar calendar. The name Vietnam New Year is Sino-Vietnamese for Feast of the First Morning..

Tet is celebrated on the same day as Chinese New Year, though exceptions arise due to the one-hour time difference between Hanoi and Beijing resulting in the alternate calculation of the new moon. It takes place from the first day of the first month of the Lunar calendar (around late January or early February) until at least the third day. Many Vietnamese prepare for Tet by cooking special holiday foods and cleaning the house. There are a lot of customs practiced during Tet, such as visiting a person's house on the first day of the new year (xong nha), ancestral worshipping, wishing New Year's greetings, giving lucky money to children and elderly people, and opening a shop.

Tet is also an occasion for pilgrims and family reunions. During Tet, Vietnamese visit their relatives and temples, forgetting about the troubles of the past year and hoping for a better upcoming year. They consider Tet to be the first day of spring and the festival is often called hoi xuan (spring festival).