Why send Kitchen God next year?

Sending Kitchen God next year is sending him away. Kitchen God has been looking after the daily life of a family for a year on earth. At the end of the year, he needs to go back to heaven and tell the Jade Emperor that the whole year's work at home has been summarized.

The flavor of the year in the north is often gradually enriched after the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month. On the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, also called off-year, there is a very important thing to do on this day, that is, to send Kitchen God back to the palace. In Taoist temples all over the country and some rural areas with traditional beliefs, couplets around Kitchen God will read "Heaven speaks well and goes back to the palace for good luck", which is exactly the task to be done on this day-sending stoves.

As the name implies, "sending the kitchen stove" means sending away the kitchen god. Kitchen God has taken care of the daily life of a family on the earth for a year. At the end of the year, he needs to go back to heaven to tell the Jade Emperor about the good deeds or evil deeds of this family in the past year. According to the suggestion of Kitchen God, the Jade Emperor made a comprehensive comparison, and then worked out the fortune of this family for the next year. So what the kitchen god said when he returned to the palace is of great significance to the family. People all hope that the householder can put in a good word for himself and his family in the sky, so it is circulated among the people on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month that candies made of caramel and flour are used to worship the kitchen god. Because this kind of honeydew melon is sticky, the people hope to stick to the mouth of the kitchen god, and they can only say good things when they return to the palace, not to mention bad things at all, in exchange for good luck in the coming year. Is there a custom of eating sweets to sacrifice stoves in your hometown?

"On the day when the kitchen ascended to heaven, there was a kind of sugar in the street, the size of a citrus, and we also had it there, but it was very flat, like a thick pancake. That is the so-called' sacrifice candy'. The original intention is to invite the kitchen god to eat and stick his teeth, so that he can't adjust his mouth to speak ill of the jade emperor. " The "candy for offering sacrifices to the stove" mentioned here is "honeydew melon", which is called differently in different places. We call it sacrificial sugar here.

In the immortal system, the position of the kitchen god is not high, and its full name is "Nine Days East Chef makes the kitchen king in the palace", and its main duty is to be responsible for the affairs on a kitchen table. China people have always attached importance to "food is the most important thing for the people", and solved the problem of eating first, that is, worshiping the kitchen god first, and then praying for other gods to bless and eliminate disasters. Therefore, Kitchen God is one of the most popular Taoist gods in folk beliefs. In prints in many areas, the image of "Grandma Kitchen God" sometimes appears next to the kitchen god, which is probably created and spread spontaneously by the people with human couples as the reference, and is generally consistent with the image of the husband and wife god of the land god and the land woman. At the same time, the lunar calendar of that year will be printed below the print, and the contents closely related to people's farming life, such as the size of the month, the 24 solar terms, whether there is a leap month, etc., will be reflected in the kitchen god print. These powers held by Kitchen God are inseparable from people's daily life, so they are called "the head of the family".