Japanese New Years

Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu! (Happy New Year!) Emily's Japanese homework assignment was to say that to a Japanese person and have them initial her homework paper. So all of our family has been practicing that phrase to help her. The biggest Japanese holiday of the year. Here's what I have observed.

December 31: Clean, clean, clean. This is the big house cleaning of the year. Also, all family members take a bath, sometimes with sweet smelling stuff added to the water, so everyone will be clean for the new year. Most people eat soba for dinner on the 31, because the long noodles symbolize a long life. They usually wait to eat till midnight, as a family. New Years is celebrated with just family, not like at home where most people go to parties with friends. Everybody travels to their parents (or spouses parents) homes. Tokyo seems so empty right now. There is hardly any traffic. We love it!

January 1: Visit a shrine. Almost everyone does it, although most will tell you it's a culture thing, not a religious thing. Stay home, kids play New Years games and open their New Years money. Grandparents and parents give money to their children in special envelopes. Then, the next day, or sometime very soon, the kids get to go spend all their money. Think of it as like buying your own Christmas presents.

They also send out New Years cards here, instead of Christmas cards. The cool thing is, they come all together, bundled up in your mail box the morning of Jan. 1, instead of our Christmas cards, that come all throughout the month of December. So it's very exciting for the family to check their mail on Jan 1 and open all their cards. The mailman delivers the New Years cards, and then takes the rest of the day off.

New Years decorations--the bigger bamboo pot is outside businesses and big buildings and the pine branches are tied to the doors of people's homes.