Xiaonian 小年 — Little New Year

The twenty-third or twenty-fourth of the twelfth lunar month — the send-off of the kitchen god. Xiaonian is the little new year, observed a week before the main one. Its central custom is the sending off of the kitchen god, whose report on the household is the point of the observance.

Its date is set by the lunar month, so it moves against the solar calendar. The twenty-third or twenty-fourth of the twelfth lunar month — the send-off of the kitchen god. The regional split on this date is worth knowing because it is genuinely regional: unlike most date discrepancies in the calendar, this one is not a solar/lunar confusion but a local custom.

The date differs by region — the twenty-third in the north, the twenty-fourth in much of the south — which is one of the few calendrical facts that varies geographically rather than by system. It is grouped under Fire (火) in the five-element system.