Mythology about Chinese New Year

According to tales and legends, there was a beast called the Nian long time ago. Nian came to the village to eat people at the first day of a year. In order to protect themselves, villagers started to put food  in front of their doors for Nian, hoping he will stop eat people after he was fed by these foods.
However, it doesn't help a lot. A god told villagers to put red paper on his house and to place firecrackers because Nian was Nian was afraid of the color red. After that people  hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors and used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian. From then on, Nian never came to the village again.