Twenty-third of the twelfth lunar month: We all know that the twenty-third of the twelfth lunar month is a small year, but few people know the traditional festival of offering sacrifices to stoves. Legend has it that on this day, kitchen gods, traditional gods and folk gods will return to heaven and report their annual work summary to the boss Jade Emperor. In particular, the kitchen god will tell the boss about the right and wrong, good and evil in the world as a basis for rewarding or punishing mortals. Therefore, even if we don't do anything harmful, people will go home all the way to worship the god and kitchen god at home.
"Twenty-three, the honeydew melon is sticky, and the chef is going to heaven." In order to worship the stove, people need to go to the market in advance, buy back corn or millet as candy for the stove, and offer it at night, which means to paste the mouth of the kitchen god so as not to complain to the jade emperor in heaven. People are also heartbroken to please the kitchen god and wish the coming year. Before he left, they would light firecrackers and dance the king chef dance to see him off.
People began to use brooms as early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties, but this was only a religious ceremony for the ancients to drive away the epidemic. Later, because of the homonym of "dust" and "Chen", sweeping dust was given the meaning of eliminating the old and welcoming the new, sweeping away all bad luck and bad luck. In 2004, it gradually evolved into a Spring Festival cleaning, and the broom used for cleaning was also very elegant. You have to make a broom out of straw and a stick that is longer than people's height to clean it, and then save the straw for the New Year's Eve, and then light it for the men to jump on the fire.
Twenty-five of the twelfth lunar month: making tofu
Grinding bean curd will be visited on the 25th of the twelfth lunar month. Until now, some places still keep the custom of eating tofu dregs around the Spring Festival. Because after the Kitchen God reported to the boss, the Jade Emperor would come to check the water meter to see if every household was as obedient as the Kitchen God reported, so people ate tofu dregs to show their poverty and avoid the punishment of extravagance and waste.
On the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month, you should do two things: killing pigs, cutting annual meat and washing Fulu. The so-called killing pigs, of course, is to kill your own pigs; Cutting meat means that poor people who don't raise pigs go to the market to buy meat for the New Year. In the ancient farming society, the economy was underdeveloped, and people could only eat meat on New Year's Day, so pork was nicknamed "Nianrou".