Can you burn incense during the off-year period?

On New Year's Day, we will celebrate the New Year, and before the New Year, we will celebrate the New Year. The Chinese New Year will not be as grand and lively as the Chinese New Year, but it is also a very important traditional festival. When we visit relatives' homes during the Spring Festival, we will find that everyone's home is very clean and tidy. Generally speaking, it is cleaned in a small year. Some people think that off-year can't burn incense. Is it true?/You don't say. What's the custom for the New Year's holiday? Let's have a look.

The main folk activity in off-year is "giving stoves", that is, "king of people". Kitchen God is also called "Kitchen God", and Han people call it "Kitchen God". Legend has it that the Kitchen King turned out to be a rich boy named Zhang Dan. He once married a virtuous woman Guo Dingxiang, then divorced his wife and continued to marry Li Haitang. Li was lazy by nature, and soon squandered the property of the Zhang family and remarried others. Zhang Dan's family was ruined, caught in a sea of fire and became a beggar. One day, he went to a family to beg, and the host gave him hot soup and rice. Later, he found that the person who delivered the meal was his abandoned wife Guo Dingxiang, and he was ashamed. Before coming into contact with the kitchen, he was named the king of the kitchen by Jiang Taigong.

Off-year, it is also the day when Han people sacrifice their stoves. According to the folklore of the Han nationality, every year on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, Kitchen God will tell the Jade Emperor about the good and evil of this family, and let the Jade Emperor reward and punish them. Therefore, when sending stoves, people put candy, water, boiled beans and sacrificial stoves on the console table in front of the statue of the kitchen king; Among them, the last three are the mounts of the kitchen god ascending to heaven. When offering sacrifices to the stove, you should melt the Guandong sugar with fire and put it on the mouth of the kitchen god. In this way, he can't speak ill of the jade emperor In addition, on New Year's Eve, the Kitchen God will bring the gods to the world for the New Year, and there will be ceremonies of "receiving the kitchen" and "receiving the gods" on that day. Every family burns sedan chairs and horses, sprinkles three glasses of wine, and sends away the kitchen god, so it's their turn to worship their ancestors.

There are always different opinions about the dates when the ancients offered sacrifices to stoves, such as the first month, April, May, August and December. In the feudal society of China, religions coexisted, and there were thousands of gods, all of which were respected by Han folk customs. Perhaps in order to simplify unity, facilitate memory and operation, the saying that Kitchen God goes to heaven once a month has evolved into going to heaven once a year. And fix the time on the 24th or 23rd of the twelfth lunar month. This day has become a traditional festival for offering sacrifices to stoves.

People think that a few good words from the Kitchen God in front of the Jade Emperor will bring happiness to the family and bless the family's peace in the coming year. Therefore, on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, every household has to offer sacrifices to the kitchen god and ask him to speak well and say auspicious words the day after tomorrow. This ceremony of sending the kitchen god is called "sending the kitchen stove" or "resigning the kitchen stove".

When sending stoves, people use various methods to deal with the kitchen god, in order to make him "speak well from heaven and return to the palace for good luck." Some worship it with chewing gum candy, so as to stick the kitchen god's teeth so that it can't talk nonsense; Some people paint the kitchen door with distiller's grains, calling it "drunk commander", so drunk that the kitchen god dare not talk nonsense.

Kitchen God is treated specially. It is certainly not good for him to "eat others' mouths short" and speak ill of him. This is actually a kind of moral self-discipline among the people.

Seven days later, on New Year's Eve, the Kitchen God will be brought back. Because, on the night of New Year's Eve, Kitchen God will come to the earth to celebrate the New Year with the gods, and there will be ceremonies of "receiving the kitchen" and "receiving the gods" on that day. According to the general local custom, the master is responsible for receiving the kitchen god, and the harem does not participate. In ancient times, there was a saying that "men don't Yue Bai, women don't sacrifice stoves".

After seeing off the Kitchen God, it was the turn to worship the ancestors, which was called "hanging shadows" by the people. Lin, a folklore expert in Tianjin, said that on New Year's Day, portraits or photos of ancestors should be hung on the wall, drinks and tributes should be prepared, and people should worship them until New Year's Eve.

Summary: incense can be burned during the off-year period, and the main worship is the kitchen god. The customs of celebrating off-year vary from place to place, but offering sacrifices to stoves and sweeping dust are common customs.