Chinese New Year is the most important festival for Chinese. Celebration activities for Chinese New Year are colorful and have strong characters of the Chinese Nation. Get know more about Chinese New Year at this website.
Chinese New Year worship
Chinese New Year is one of the most important occasions where Chinese worship their ancestors. Before Chinese New Year’s Eve, Chinese have taken out their family tree books, the pictures and spirit tablets of their ancestors, and put them in the living rooms to prepare for worship. In some regions, the worship is held on Chinese New Year’s Eve, while in some other regions it is held in the morning of Chinese New Year day. The worship is normally led by the oldest man in the family. Delicious food is used to as sacrifice on the worship ceremony. In addition, the people burn joss sticks, bow down, pray and burn spirit money to their ancestors. Most families worship their ancestors at home. However, in some villages where all families belong to same clan people hold collective worship. Many Chinese worship also Heaven God, Earth God, Jade Emperor God, the wife of Jade Emperor God, Buddha, etc in Chinese New Year festival. Most of the worships to Gods are processed in temples.
Kitchen God is a God which Chinese worship at home. People worship the God before Chinese New Year with sweet nuts and delicious food. In addition they burn joss sticks and pray just as they do for other Gods on worship ceremonies. According to Chinese legends, on the 24th of La month, the last month of a lunar year, Kitchen God returns to the Heaven, where he meets Jade Emperor God and report about the conducts of every family in the old year. So people offer sweet nuts and delicious food to him and hope that he will report about them kindly. Jade Emperor God in Heaven decides whether the family will get award or punishment based on the report from Kitchen God. The worship is usually held on the 23th, 24th or the 25th of La month. In many places, the day when people start to worship Kitchen God is thought as the start of Chinese New Year celebration.