Due to different customs and habits in different places, there are differences in the time of the Little New Year in the north and the south. The Little New Year in the north generally refers to the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, while the Little New Year in the south generally refers to the 24th of the twelfth lunar month. According to this time, the reasoning is as follows: < /p>

1. The Little New Year in the north is on February 4, 2021, which is Little New Year’s Eve, which is the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month.

2. The Southern Little New Year is on February 5, 2021, which is Little New Year’s Eve, which is the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month.

3. The Little New Year in Taiwan is the day before New Year’s Eve.

4. The Little New Year in Nanjing is on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, which is the Lantern Festival.

Little New Year does not specifically refer to one day. Due to customs in various places, the days called "Little New Year" are also different. The main folk activities during the Little New Year period include sweeping dust, offering sacrifices to stoves, etc. Traditionally, the Small New Year (the day for sweeping dust and offering sacrifices to kitchen stoves) falls on the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month. In most parts of the south, the ancient tradition of celebrating the Small New Year on the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month is still maintained. Since the middle and late Qing Dynasty, the emperor's family has held a ceremony to worship the heaven on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month. In order to "save expenses", they also worshiped the Kitchen God. Therefore, the people in the northern region followed suit and celebrated the ceremony on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month one day in advance. Little year.

"Little Nian" has different concepts and dates in different places. In the north, it is the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, and in most parts of the south, it is the 24th of the twelfth lunar month. In Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, "the twenty-fourth of the twelfth lunar month" and "New Year's Eve" are "The night before" is called Xiaonian. In Nanjing, the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first lunar month is called Xiaonian. In some areas of Yunnan, the date of Xiaonian is the 16th day of the first lunar month. In some areas in the southwest and north, the date of Xiaonian is New Year's Eve.

New Year customs

1. Sweeping the New Year

Sweeping the New Year means sweeping the dust. In fact, it is to carry out household environmental sanitation. Southerners regard the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month as the off-year, which is called "dusting off". Northerners regard the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month as a small year, which is called "sweeping the house". On this day, every household gets up at dawn to sweep the house, clean the windows, wash the clothes, scrub the pots and pans, and carry out a clean and thorough general cleaning. A few days before the Little New Year, every family cleans their house to prevent the Kitchen God from taking away the soil. At that time, it was a religious ceremony for ancestors to drive away epidemic ghosts and pray for health. The word "dust" is a homophone for "chen", so sweeping the dust means sweeping away the old things. This refers to both the old dirt in the courtyard and the unhappiness encountered in the old years.

2. Offering sacrifices to the stove

Sacrificing the stove means offering sacrifices to the Kitchen God to ascend to heaven, so the Xiaonian Festival is also called the Stove Festival. According to "Feng Tu Ji", a chronicle of local customs written by Zhou Chu, a celebrity in the Jin Dynasty: "On the night of the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, the stove was worshiped. It was said that the stove god would go to heaven the next day and become a year old, so he was worshiped on the first day." Fan Chengda in the Song Dynasty wrote "Poetry for Sacrifice to the Stove": "It is said in ancient times that on the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month, the Stove Lord looked up to the sky and wanted to say something... I sent him drunk and full to the gate of heaven. His ladle was long and his ladle was short, but it should not return to the clouds. I begged for profit points when I returned."