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In Japan, the New Year is the most important celebration of the year and everyone hasa holiday. It is a time to make a new start, so it is important that everything is just rightand people spend a lot of time getting ready from the end of December.

What do people do at New Yearʼs?
Before the New Year, people will normally clean the house from top
to bottom, put up decorations for good luck, and spend time writing
new yearʼs cards to send to friends and family.
On New Yearʼs Day people will spend time with their families and willeat a specially prepared meal called osechi and each osechi food hasa special meaning.
Many people will also go to a shrine or a temple on New Yearʼs Day
which is called hatsumode, meaning ʻthe ﬁrst visit of the yearʼ. NewYearʼs Day is especially exciting for children as they will receive
otoshidama, gifts of money in decorated envelopes!

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Decorations
Kagami-mochi is a traditional New Yearʼs decoration that people
display at home and it is as an oﬀering to the New Year Gods.
The decoration is made from mochi (cooked rice, which has beenpounded until it combines together) so it can be broken into
pieces and eaten after the New Yearʼs holiday.

Can you ﬁnd out the Japanese name for the fruit on
the top of the Kagami-mochi?

Kado-matsu are New Yearʼs decorations made from pineboughs, bamboo stalks, and sometimes plum tree branches. Thedecorations are a symbol to welcome long life, good fortune andprosperity into the household so they are set up in pairs, on bothsides of the front entrance to a house. Pine trees grow tall and live
a long time which is why they are used as a symbol of long life.

How many bamboo stalks are used in a kado-matsu
decoration?

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New Yearʼs FoodOn New Yearʼs Day, Japanese families will eat a meal together called osechi andeach food has a special meaning. Take a look at some of them below.

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Can you match each osechi food with the wish?

a•• for a good harvestb•• for intelligencec•• for good luck with moneyd•• to work harde•• for a long life

Answers: a, to work hard; b, for a good harvest; c, for a long life;d, for intelligence; e, good luck with money.

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yume

New Yearʼs dreams
In Japan, the ﬁrst dream you have in the New Year is called Hatsuyume. Hatsumeans ʻﬁrstʼ and yume means ʻdreamʼ. There is a popular myth that there are threelucky things to dream about and it is said you will have good luck in the coming
year if you dream about them. They are:

1. Mount Fuji
2. A Hawk
3. An aubergine

There are some guesses about why these three things are the luckiest, but no-one
is exactly sure why. Do you have any ideas?
What symbols of good luck can you think of? What would you like your hatsuyume(ﬁrst dream) to be about? You can draw your dream below.

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osho gatsu

Kanji Characters
In Japanese, New year is ʻshogatsuʼ. In Japanese characters it is written like this:
正月. You can practice writing it below. Trace the characters by following the strokeorder, then try to write them on your own.

正 月正 月
①②④

①

③

②

③
④

Did you know that there is a tradition of doing calligraphy in the New Year in Japan?
It is called Kakizome, 書き初め in kanji characters, which means ʻﬁrst writingʼ because
it is the ﬁrst calligraphy of the New Year.
Below are two ʻluckyʼ Japanese kanji characters ‒ why not try writing them?
幸：happiness or good fortune

福: good luck or good fortune

幸幸
福福②①③⑥④⑧①⑤⑦⑤②④③⑦⑥⑧⑪ ⑫⑨⑬⑩Together, the characters 幸福 mean happiness.
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Fukuwarai Game
Young people in Japan will spend the New Yearʼs holidays much like children in theUK will spend their Christmas holiday. This includes things like spending time withfamily and eating meals together, relaxing, watching TV and playing games.
Below is one traditional game called Fukuwarai ‒ why not try it?

Game Instructions:
1. Carefully cut out each part of the face from thetemplate on the next page.
2. Stick blue -tack or masking tape on the back of each part.
3. Find a partner. Partner A will put on a blindfold and try to stick each facial part tothe face in the correct spot. Partner B will be the helper who hands partner A eachpart, one at a time.
4. Once completed, switch over.
5. The winner is the person who can create the most accurate face!

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