This year, the first day of the 7th lunar month falls on Saturday - August 23 of the lunar calendar.
According to the book Vietnam Traditional Literature (Vietnam Culture and Information Publishing House), every July 1, Vietnamese families often make wishes and ancestral offerings to pray for everyone in the family to be healthy, safe, lucky and successful.
On this day, each family will prepare offerings to offer to their ancestors and their gods, expressing gratitude and respect. In particular, on the first day of the 7th lunar month, many families also offer offerings to improve their lives.
The ancestral worship offering tray on the first day of the 7th lunar month
Normally, ancestral and family worship tray has both vegetarian and salty rituals, depending on the choice of each family.
For vegetarian ceremony, incense, flowers, betel, areca, fruit, gold, and water are indispensable. Some families also prepare sticky rice, sweet soup, and green vegetables.
With salty trays, mainly dishes such as chicken, wine, spring rolls, soup... Each region will have its own unique dishes. The North has more ham, ball soup, bamboo shoots, and stir-fried vegetables. Central region's food trays feature fish and shrimp, many areas prefer steamed goat meat and stewed beef. In the South, families often cook egg stewed meat, Asian sticky rice soup through stuffing, banh tet...
The ancestral and family worship ceremony needs to be carefully prepared, presented beautifully, and expressed sincerity. In addition to dishes, offerings on the first day of the 7th lunar month should have additional votive paper.
The offering tray for the children on the first day of the 7th lunar month
The offering tray for daily life is often simpler than the offering tray for the ancestors, including offerings such as rice paper, burnt, corn, boiled sweet potatoes, boiled eggs, diced congee, salt, rice, candy, sticky rice, incense, flowers, fruits, cups of water.
In addition, families can prepare additional votive paper, paper money, paper clothes... depending on each family's conditions.
