When the word "Spring Festival" replaces "New Year" more and more forcefully, the New Year, this ritual that once carried warmth, expectation, and hometown fireworks, became more and more faint.
Xiaonian is the most important program before the New Year, and in memory, this day is more important than the Lantern Festival after the New Year.
On this day, the mother will clean the kitchen and offer the best sacrifice she can to the king of the stove - the impression is that there should be a piece of braised meat. I don't know, whether the stove king likes to eat meat, and I don't know if the stove king drinks or not. Never seen, the mother gave the stove king wine. I remember that there was no alcohol in the house at that time. Neither father nor mother drank.
The mother would also light three sticks of incense, pray in front of the king of the stove for the safety of the family in the new year, and then respectfully insert the incense into the incense burner filled with ashes in a bowl.
The whole ritual is simple and the mother does it naturally.
At that time, the Stove King was enshrined in the form of a small opening new year painting, and I couldn't remember the appearance of the Stove King, and I remembered that the Stove King was wearing a black gauze hat and holding several yuan treasures on his chest.
At this moment, I think that at that time, the gods and immortals who could be worshipped at home, such as the god of wealth, such as the stove king, such as the Baojia Immortal... They all looked alike, and it was difficult for children to distinguish the appearance of several gods and immortals carefully. Of course, in front of playing with friends, distinguishing between these gods and immortals does not arouse the interest of children.
This day is the day to eat the first dumplings before the New Year.
Who doesn't eat a meal of dumplings for the New Year. This saying is still common today, but in this era when dumplings have long become a common staple food, many young people can no longer imagine the years when they were looking forward to eating dumplings in the New Year.
Because of the annual luxury, the dumplings at that time were supremely delicious, not inferior to today's meal full of mountain treasures and seafood. Of course, this is already an era when many people are tired of eating mountain treasures and seafood, and there are still many people who are not clothed and hungry.
It is inevitable that some people will become more and more greasy, and some people will live more and more strangely, like a walking corpse.
On the day of the New Year, in addition to eating dumplings, I occasionally know if I can have a new pair of socks during the New Year. If you can have a new pair of socks, this year will be exceptionally warm. No, and not depressed, the little friend shouted, and went out to play hard, and when he came back, he had already forgotten about the socks.
At this moment, it was a time when parents were powerless. The beauty of promising to give the child a new pair of socks is immersed in the bitterness and helplessness of the parents' difficult steps.
What parent would be as vicious as selling their biological son for twenty-seven thousand dollars?
Because of the inability to do anything in childhood, parents are always unwilling. Now those hard days are long gone, and parents are no longer struggling with a new pair of socks. However, some memories of the past, parents remember more deeply than children remember, the bitterness in that memory always comes out from time to time, mixed into today's sweet happiness.
Parents still maintain the habit of hard work and thriftiness that they developed during their hard days. Leftovers and leftovers were hot and hot, any dilapidated home was repaired and repaired, faded and torn clothes were still patched up and worn and worn... The undertone filled with suffering is hard to indelible. I always didn't understand their thoughts before, but now I understand them.
On this day, we must also prepare for the next New Year to kill pigs and slaughter chicken croquettes steamed bean bun stickers to the window flower lanterns and firecrackers.
Steaming bean buns is a big deal before the New Year. Sometimes one or two neighbors would be asked to come and help. After the steamed bean buns are frozen by the air outside the courtyard at about minus 30 degrees, they are arranged one by one into the large tank, and then the cylinder mouth is sealed, and the outside is covered with pine branches newly cut from the hillside by the father, and the cover is thick.
This is the most extravagant staple that lasts throughout the spring. When you come back from watching a play or an open-air movie in the first month, your mother will bake a bean bag waiting for you, and occasionally, she will bake several dumplings waiting for you to come back, and then go to sleep after eating.
The so-called delicacy has not yet surpassed the bean buns or dumplings baked by the mother in the deep winter night. The scarcity of materials and the thickness of maternal love are the ingredients that these foods will make me unforgettable.
I haven't eaten my mother's baked bean buns and dumplings in a long time.
Happy New Year!
January 25, 2022