Our office has already shuddered several times over the last week. Fireworks sound much, much louder on the 28th floor. Sporadically, but without doubt, the week of morning-to-next-morning explosions has begun. Keep your pets inside, if only so you can also avoid going outside and putting life and limb at the mercy of some toothless octogenarian launching rockets from the doorway of your flat block.

But if you stay at home, you might turn on the TV, and the TV will be even more banal than normal. Expect daily re-runs of the CCTV Spring Festival "Gala," which everyone in Beijing seems to agree is crap year in, year out, but is still considered essential viewing by almost all of those exact same people. The other staple of New Year television is charity variety shows. These shows seem designed to make people cry. Kids from poor families and areas are put on a stage and patronised by cheeseball presenters until their eyes well up. Then the piano music swells up, and everyone's supposed to feel fuzzy and warm. Seems a bit sick, but hey, that's entertainment.

So are Chinese New Year parties, and there are loads of them this weekend. Bling start the celebrations tonight with their Tiger-themed party, which starts at 9pm. Saturday night is when everything goes mad. There's Obiwan's Absinthe Without Leave party, featuring absinthe cocktails and some of the best drunken views of the fireworks across Xihai. The fun starts at 9pm. Or if you don't need to see fireworks but want to eat some techno-flavored dumplings, go to Lantern's New Year Party - free jiaozi until 3am. And Q Bar's roof terrace doesn't usually open until the warmer months, but George and Echo will be opening the rooftop for firework watching with free dumplings and some of Beijing's best martinis.

Other bars where you can get a view of the fireworks include: China Bar or Happiness Lounge for up-in-the-clouds views, and the Drum & Bell for some lao Beijing firework pandemonium - queue up at the Bell Tower early on Sunday to try to snap up a ticket to go up the Tower and ring the bell!

While everyone tries to sleep through the din of fireworks as day breaks on Feb 14, some of you will wake up to realise that you forgot about Valentine's Day. Try to make up for it by taking your significant other out for dinner - see our blog post on Valentine's specials here - or go to Lantern's Valentine's Groove party.

Lots of good stuff coming up after the holidays - Holy Ghost at Lan on Feb 25, Disco on Ice at Solana's ice rink on Feb 27, Mark Ernestus at White Rabbit on Mar 5 and DJ Vadim at Yugong Yishan on Mar 13 - look out for an interview on the blog - but we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's get all the baijiu drinking of Spring Festival out of the way first - ganbei!