Why do you want to spend a small year? What is the origin?

Off-year means that people begin to prepare for new year's goods and have a clean and beautiful year, indicating that the New Year should have a new atmosphere and expressing the good wishes of the working people of the Han nationality to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year.

The origin of off-year

Generally speaking, off-year is relatively off-year

Off-year is a traditional festival of Han nationality in China, also known as Xie Zao, Zao Zao Festival, Zao Wang Festival and Zao Zao Festival.

Off-year is a day for people to sacrifice their stoves. There is also a legend about offering sacrifices to stoves. Because every household has a kitchen stove, the Jade Emperor stationed a kitchen god in every household to supervise and inspect what he did this year. On the off-year day, Kitchen God will report the good and evil of this year to the Jade Emperor for reward and punishment. Therefore, when every household sacrifices to the stove, it is necessary to melt the candy with a torch and wipe it on the mouth of the kitchen god.

The Festival of Sacrificing Kitchen Stove is actually a festival for every household to send the kitchen god to heaven. If there is a farewell to the kitchen god, there will be a ceremony to welcome the kitchen god the next day. On New Year's Eve, the Kitchen God will bring the gods to the world to pay New Year greetings, and there will be ceremonies of "receiving the kitchen" and "receiving the gods" on that day.

Extended data:

This festival is very interesting. The date is uncertain, some places are the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, and some places are the 24th of the twelfth lunar month. But in any case, people who have worked hard for almost a whole year will plan to have a comfortable New Year.

Off-year is the beginning of the New Year in China.

"Twenty-three, honey melon stick"

"Chinese New Year Ballad" spread all over the country. Although some words are slightly different, the first sentence is almost always "twenty-three, honeydew melon is sticky". Therefore, "eating honeydew melon" is a very important custom in the off-year period.

The main raw material of honeydew melon is maltose, which is boiled with some yellow rice. It is very sticky. If it is stretched into long strips, it is called "Kwantung Sugar". Knead into a flat circle, it is called "sugar melon".

Melons can be put outside in winter. Because of the cold weather, the honeydew melon is solidified very firmly, but there are still some tiny bubbles in it, which makes it cool, crisp, sweet and unique.

The ancient candied melon is also called "gum tooth enamel", and "enamel" is sugar. The name introduces the viscosity of this cake. Bai Juyi, a great poet, wrote, "After the New Year's Eve, we should push the blue-tailed wine, and after the spring vegetables, we should persuade the gum teeth to use it first", which shows that this kind of sugar was already a very popular seasonal food at that time.

Sacrifice the stove to the kitchen king.

The honeydew melon also plays an important role, that is, it will be given to the Kitchen God as a sacrifice to the Kitchen God on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month.

"Kitchen God" is also called kitchen king and kitchen king. There has always been a folk legend: "Kitchen God" was originally a civilian Zhang Sheng, who drank and had fun all day after he got married, and finally became a beggar for a living. One day, he begged in front of his ex-wife's house, ashamed, plunged into the bottom of the stove and burned to death.

After the jade emperor knew this, he thought he still had a sense of shame, which was not bad until the end. Because he died at the bottom of the pot, he was named the kitchen god. Every year, on the 23rd and 24th of the twelfth lunar month, God reports the good or bad news of each family, and then goes back on New Year's Eve or the first day of the first month.

The "Kitchen God" painted in the folk New Year pictures is always a kind-hearted old man, sometimes accompanied by a portrait of "Grandma Kitchen God". According to the custom, people will sacrifice to the kitchen god in the off-year and bring a plate of honeydew melons.

The specific ceremony is probably to take off the old image, tie a grass horse to the kitchen god with straw, stick a sticky honeydew melon on the kitchen god's mouth, and then burn it with the grass horse, which is also the "resignation stove".

Xiao Fang, a folklore expert, said that offering sacrifices to stoves is an important holiday custom in the traditional off-year period, and the name of Kitchen God appeared in the Warring States Period.

People will inevitably meet each other in their daily lives. People are worried that Kitchen God will make a snitch, so they befriend it, commonly known as "Mei Zao". When offering kitchen candy to the kitchen god, pray "sweet and spicy, Mo Yan, the kitchen god" and expect him to say more good things the day after tomorrow.

References:

People's Daily Online _ Gossip "Off-year": Why is its date different?