What do you mean by "small years north and small years south"?

Refers to the off-year in northern and southern regions.

Different places have different concepts and dates of "off-year" In the north of China, it is the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, while in the south of China, it is the 24th of the twelfth lunar month. In Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, the 24th of the twelfth lunar month and the night before New Year's Eve are all called off-year. In Nanjing, the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month is called off-year. In some areas of Yunnan, the date of off-year is the 16th day of the first month, and in some areas of southwest and north China it is New Year's Eve.

Extended data:

Offering sacrifices to stoves is one of the main customs in off-year. Folk sacrificial stoves originated from the ancient custom of worshipping fire. For example, Ming Shi said, "The kitchen. Make it, create food. " 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. According to "Records of Local Customs" written by Zhou Chu, a celebrity in Jin Dynasty in China, "On the 24th night of the twelfth lunar month, the kitchen god offered sacrifices to heaven, and he was one year old the next day, so he offered sacrifices to the day first." Fan Chengda's poem "Sacrificing a Kitchen Stove" in the Song Dynasty: "According to legend, on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, the kitchen owner talks to the sky ... and sends you to Tianmen to get drunk. If it takes too long, you won't go back to the clouds and beg for points in the city."

Off-year is 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, expressing people's good wishes to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Due to different local customs, the days called "off-year" are different. Some places in modern China say that "three officials, three people, four boats and five boats" means that the official off-year is the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, the people's family is the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, and the houseboat is the 25th of the twelfth lunar month.

In fact, there is no distinction between "official off-year" and "civilian off-year", but the concept and date of off-year in different regions are different, and the official off-year and civilian off-year in the same region are the same. Traditionally, the off-year in most parts of China falls on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month. Before the Qing Dynasty, officials and people in the north also celebrated their off-year holidays on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month. In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, the royal family worshipped the kitchen god on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month one day in advance, so people in the northern region also celebrated the off-year holiday on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month one day in advance.