Oshogatsu (New Year's Day)

January 1

This is the "festival of festivals" in Japan, also known as Ganjitsu, actually celebrated for several days. Government offices, banks, museums and most businesses are closed from New Year's Day, a national holiday, through January 3.

From the middle of December, streets are decorated with pine and plum branches, bamboo stalks, and ropes festooned with paper. Traditional home decorations are small pine trees with bamboo stems attached, which are placed on either side of the front entrance to represent longevity and constancy. For weeks before New Year's, people clean house and purchase new clothes for the children; this is also a time for exchanging gifts, sending greeting cards, and paying off personal debts.

On New Year's Day, it's traditional to pray at the household altar and to eat special foods, for example, steamed rice that has been pounded into small, round, gooey cakes called mochi . Herring roe is eaten for fertility, black beans for health, dried chestnuts for success, and porgy and prawns are omens of happiness.

Business resumes on Jan. 4, and the holiday period is over on Jan. 7 when decorations come down as part of the festival of Nanakusa Matsuri.


See also Hadaka Matsuri, Omisoka, Utakai Hajime

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