What is the fairy tale about sending the kitchen god on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month during the Spring Festival?

In China, we celebrate China New Year every year. The custom of celebrating the New Year in China began on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month and lasted for 20 days. It won't end until the fifteenth day of the first month. There are different customs and preparations every day.

Then we all know that the 24th of the twelfth lunar month is also called off-year. In off-year, we China people must clean our home well. Why?

It turns out that cleaning all the homes, especially the kitchen stove, is to send the kitchen god back to heaven. Kitchen God is also called Kitchen God. It turns out that in people's legend, every year on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, Kitchen God will report to the Jade Emperor the situation of every household in the world.

However, this kitchen god especially likes to snitch and often speaks ill of the Jade Emperor. Therefore, people will not only clean their homes so that the kitchen god has nothing to say, but also put some delicious food on their altars to worship the kitchen god, which is actually equivalent to bribing the kitchen god in disguise. After eating these offerings, Kitchen God won't speak ill of your family when he goes to heaven.

In other places, even a lot of sticky candy or sweets are put in the offerings to Kitchen God. They believe that after eating candy, Kitchen God's teeth will be stuck, and he will not speak ill of us when he goes to heaven.

Haha, do you think it is very interesting? When I first heard this legend when I was a child, I thought Kitchen God must be a big fat man, and even secretly ate the offerings given to him by adults. Now I think Kitchen God had better not find out, otherwise he must have reported me to the Jade Emperor.