The custom of off-year

Off-year has the following traditional customs: being king, sweeping dust, cutting window grilles, taking a bath, putting up Spring Festival couplets, getting married and buying new year's goods.

Off-year is a traditional festival in China, also known as "Kitchen God Festival" and "Kitchen God Festival". Off-year is the beginning and foreshadowing of the whole Spring Festival celebration and the prelude to the grand Spring Festival. In the off-year, people begin to prepare for the new year and live a clean and good year. The origin of off-year legend is that Kitchen God was originally a civilian Zhang Sheng. After getting married, he drank and had fun all day, lost everything and went begging in the streets.

One day, he begged at his ex-wife Guo Dingxiang's house, ashamed and burned to death under the stove. When the Jade Emperor knew about it, he thought that Zhang Sheng would change his mind, and it wouldn't be bad in the end. Because he died at the bottom of the pot, he was named the kitchen god. Every year, he went to heaven on the 23rd and 24th of the twelfth lunar month and returned to the bottom of the stove on the New Year's Eve. The people think that the kitchen god must be respected because he wants to repay the kindness to heaven. Therefore, people celebrate the "off-year" on the 23rd and 24th of the twelfth lunar month, praying for peace and wealth in the coming year.

The days of off-year

The time of off-year varies from place to place: the northern part is the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, and the southern part is the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month. It is said that the traditional off-year in most parts of China is 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.

No matter what time it is now, after the New Year, the atmosphere of the New Year is even stronger! The new year is full of happiness. If you have a gorgeous animal around you at this time, it will be even more auspicious. Like friends can choose this kind of cinnabar warrior wearing copper coins, representing good luck, good luck and good luck.