The meaning of off-year

Off-year, a traditional festival in China, is also called Lunar New Year Festival, Kitchen God Festival and Kitchen God Festival. Folk activities in off-year mainly include sweeping dust and offering sacrifices to stoves. China has a vast territory and different customs. Due to different customs, the days called "off-year" are also different. The 24th of the twelfth lunar month is the "off-year" in most parts of southern China, and the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month is the "off-year" in most parts of northern China. ?

Off-year is usually considered as the beginning of a busy year, which means that people begin to prepare new year's goods, sweep dust and offer sacrifices to stoves. And prepare for a clean and beautiful year to express people's good wishes to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Sacrificial stoves have a history of several thousand years in China, which reflects the dream of China people to have enough food and clothing.

In ancient times, off-year was also called "Lunar New Year", which meant a festival around the beginning of spring and at the turn of the Lunar New Year. Off-year is usually considered as the beginning of a busy year, which means that people begin to prepare new year's goods, clean the dust and make sacrifices to the stove.

The folk sacrificial furnace originated from the ancient custom of worshipping fire. For example, Ming Shi said, "The kitchen. Make it, create food. " There is a record of the word "Kitchen God" in Ci Hai: there is a bun in the kitchen in Zhuangzi Sheng Da. Sima Biao commented: "bun, kitchen god, dressed in red, looks like a beautiful woman." Kitchen God's duty is to take charge of the kitchen fire and manage the diet. Later, it was expanded to investigate human good and evil to reduce good and evil. The belief in kitchen god is a reflection of the dream of "food and clothing" of the folk people.