Our New Year traditions

My family has always tried to celebrate each New Year the Japanese way.  We clean our house, eat osechi (a special meal with all sorts of symbolism), and visit shrines.  I find it a wonderful way to ring in the New Year.  Before marrying my husband, I often went to bed before midnight on December 31st.  I didn't care about the parties or any of that stuff.  But when I found out about all the fun traditions of the Japanese New Year, I was hooked.

On December 31st, we enjoyed soba with friends at the local restaurant we have made a tradition out of going to each New Years Eve.

We then finished cleaning our house in the evening.  I had been putting off the last little bit.  Toward the end of the day, I pulled everything out of our bedroom closet to wipe down the shelves and mop the floor.  My son and husband fished out each and every dust bunny that had taken up residence under our bed and gave them eviction notices.  Since Japanese homes are all hardwood, residents deal with lots of dust bunnies.  No matter how clean of a house you keep, they keep coming back.

The actual turning of the clock is pretty uneventful.  My husband has a bit of time-sensitive work to do right at midnight, so he is focused on his computer.  I get a quick kiss and head off to bed.

In the morning of January 1st, we enjoy our first round of osechi, making sure to give our ancestors a portion of the meal.

We also made sure to check our mailbox for nengajo (New Year's postcards).  My husband heard the mailman deliver them at 3 am!  But we waited to grab them until daylight hours.

After we ate our fill and read our cards, we headed out for a day visiting shrines.  We started with our local shrine, then visited 2 more shrines, and ended our tour with a stop at Seiryu-ji Fudoson Temple.
The second stop on our tour was Sengen Jinja in Ekoda.  It is a bit of a bike ride from our house (about 30 minutes), but we wanted to "climb Mount Fuji" today.  The small shrine is pretty typical, as far as shrines go, except for the fact that there is an 8 meter (26 feet) mound behind the main shrine that was constructed, in part, out of volcanic rock from  Mount Fuji.  This part is only open to the public three times a year - January first through third, July first, and the second weekend of September (during the shrine's annual festival).  We had been to the shrine before and really wanted to see what was up this hill.

The path ran back and forth, with probably 5 switchbacks and several short sets of tiny stairs, making the journey longer than expected on such a small mound.  As we went up, we stopped at several tiny shrines and statues.  The volcanic rock is very easy to identify as it has a very rough texture.  I was shocked to learn the rocks had been brought from Mount Fuji to its current home in the 1830s.  It is actually one of the oldest and biggest miniature versions of Mount Fuji in Tokyo prefecture that is built with actual stones from the famed mountain.

Although it didn't even take us 3 minutes to walk to the top, it was a fun experience and it felt special since it is rarely climbed.

When we got home, all three of us exclaimed what a special and fun day it was.  Each year New Years becomes more and more special to me, especially as we create all these memories in a place that holds this holiday is such high regard.