Things you may not know in Small Year.

Things you may not know in Small Year.
Although Small year isn’t a specific festival, there are so many interesting customs and taboos which some Chinese young people even don’t know. 
These are the customs in Small Year:
1.Sacrificing stove King
Small year is also the day of folk sacrificial offering. According to the Folk legend, every  year, Stove King has to go to heaven to report good and evil of each family to Jade Emperor, guiding Jade Emperor’s rewards and punishments. Therefore, when the stove was delivered, people served candies, fresh water, stuffed beans and hay on the table before the picture of Stove King. Among them, the latter three are provided as the food of his mount. People also melted Kanto sugar, painting it on the mouth of the Stove King. In this way, he can not say bad things before Jade Emperor. It is said by old people that "men do not worship the moon, women do not sacrifice the Stove." Accordingly, Stove King, only worshiped by men. In addition, New Year's Eve on the 30th, along with other gods in the heaven, Stove King also go back to the earth to spend the Spring Festival. So there are two ceremonies in that day called "Welcome Stove Ceremony" and "Welcome gods ceremony" . After the two ceremonies, it is the time to worship ancestors. 
2.Cleaning off the dust
Only six or seven days from the Spring Festival, the preparation for the Chinese New Year is even more enthusiastic after Small Year. Traditionally, Every household should carry out a thorough cleaning, commonly known as Sweeping Dust. Sweeping Dust means ringing out the old year and ringing in the new year. Whitewashing walls, scrubbing glasses, pasting windows, pasting New Year paintings are all Sweeping Dust activities.

3. Cutting window paper
In all preparation work, clipping window paper is the most popular one. Various paper cutting showing the good meaning are everywhere, such as “Sanyangkaitai”, “Erlongxizhu” , “Liuhetongchun” and so on.
4. Putting on couplets
Every household should put on couplets. Where there is a God, there should be couplets and where there are things, there will be couplets. Hence couplets have the largest number and the most complete content. Writing couplets is a kind of knowledge. Numerous scholars have studied it all their life.
5.Bathing
Everyone has to bath and cut hair without regard to adults or children. Folk saying goes like this “You have to cut your hair to welcome the new year, whatever how much money you have.” In Lvliang, Shanxi province, all women and girls should wash their feet using boil water. Inexperienced girls should also wash theirs with the help of adults, leaving a little dirty. 
6.Marriage
After twenty-three, the folk believe that there is no taboo since the gods have gone to the heaven. Getting married does not have to choose the days, known as chaos marriage. Until the end of the year, there are particularly many wedding ceremonies.
Besides various customs, there are some taboos:
Different areas have different taboos.
According to legend, some areas in Hubei,  avoid slaughtering in Small Year.
Some places in Henan believe that pounding garlic will pound the family poor.
In Taiwan, however, it is said that there will be a danger of pounding Aeolus, if you pound rice in small year, which may bring disaster to the coming year.
Those are things about small Year. Today is December 25th of lunar calendar. Spring festival is coming. Have you ready for it?