According to the Gregorian calendar, tonight is the last night of the year 2010. Tomorrow we greet 2011.
January first is the biggest holiday in Japan. In order to get off to a fresh start in the new year, Japanese people traditionally do their deepest house cleaning in the days and hours before midnight tonight. They also take a more thorough bath, wash all their clothes, and so forth, in order to set the right tone for the first day of the new year. Then, on waking up on New Year’s Day, the first everything is considered representative for the whole year: first dream (hatsuyume), first sunrise, first bus ride, etc. It’s good to start the new year with a smile, just so you know.
According to the Chinese zodiac, we will enter the Year of the Rabbit in February. I was born in the year of the (water) rabbit, so this will be my fifth time to be alive during a year of the rabbit, the first being the year I was born: 1963. I hope the Chinese astrologers are right in saying that 2011 will be a time of peacefulness and diplomacy. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
I very much enjoyed celebrating New Year’s Day in Japan. One custom I really like is that of sending out special postcards to all your friends, relatives and associates. This year the nengajoo will have pictures of rabbits on them. The postcards I sent when I was in Japan had oxen on them.
The other custom I enjoyed was the making of o-mochi, a traditional sweet made from rice and sweet red bean paste. To make it, you put cooked rice in a hollowed out tree stump and mash it by pounding it over and over with a big wooden mallet.
In fact, did you know that when Japanese children look up at a full moon at night, they don’t see a man in the moon? They see a rabbit pounding mochi.
Happy New Year, everyone. Please share how you are celebrating it. Are you setting an intention word for the year? Making resolutions? Do you celebrate the new year now or on the first day of spring in accordance with the many earth-based traditions?
To celebrate tonight, we are having a chocolate fountain – with pineapple, cookies, and other items to dip/drizzle in the milk chocolate. The adults are drinking some alcoholic beverages. We are all in our pyjamas! We have played several rounds of “Uno.” All good.
(The only bad part? We are missing one member of our family due to some yucky behaviours – he had to go to bed earlier this evening – but we are saving him some chocolate-dipped food for breakfast tomorrow.)
Happy 2011 to all!
I am right now picking and writing about my word, having a quiet time. Earlier in the day I bought myself a card and some flowers. Then I ate a late lunch at a pub and wrote in my journal. I think I’ll go to bed before midnight because I’m tired, and look forward to waking up in 2011. The Japanese customs sound quite fun! xo and happy new year, Kelly! Love, O
Olivia, I just absolutely LOVE the fact that you bought yourself a card and some flowers. So many people get stuck waiting for another person to do certain things when actually the person they are waiting for is never going to do those things. A long time ago I read something in a self-help book about healing the inner child that said, “you must become your own perfect parent.” I think it is brilliant to apply this teaching to the perfect lover, too. K
Amen to that !
As if time doesn’t go fast enough these days, now I get to celebrate the new year twice in every twelve months just to rub it in !
Hey-ho !
Merry New Year !
Happy New Year darling to you and yours!
My Tati is a rabbit too. *smiling heart*
From my childhood days I´m awake till the dawn of the new year. It used to be dinner and dancing at my grandma´s followed by the whole big family going to the riverside to watch the sun come up. Nowadays my mom and her siblings are all over sixty and fall asleep early, so it´s only me carrying on the tradition and from last year my oldest child too.
What beautiful traditions, Paula!
the neat freak in me LOVES the idea of greeting the new year all spic and span…thank you for sharing this with us!
Just by chance I was up past midnight last night. We’d had a quiet evening at home per usual for us, never were the big partiers. Watched some TV, read a bit, looked at blogs and started cleaning up my email (over 2000 emails needing to be deleted). No resolutions I actually write about that in my blog for tomorrow 1/2/11. The cleaning I am doing is normal it needs it cleaning…I try to keep doing what I have been doing that I feel is leading a life that fits me and is good for me and mine…but in fact, as I wrote for tomorrow, I back slid during our vacation in one area and will correct it not because it’s the new year, but because it’s how I normally live/eat when not on vacation. Might have to rethink the length of vacations in the future.
All that said, I do wish you and everyone a healthy, happy, prosperous new year!