Soldiers write their Spring Festival greetings to their families in calligraphy. (Photo: chinadaily.com.cn)

Holiday shopping for the upcoming Spring Festival, which begins Feb 5, usually is routine for millions of Chinese. But soldiers in Lanzhou, Northwest China's Gansu province, are ditching convention and creating their own gifts for their loved ones.

As the soldiers can't visit their families and must remain at their posts during this most important Chinese festival, they decided to share their blessings via Chinese traditional calligraphy and send them back home.