New Year's Celebration is one of the biggest seasonal events for Japanese people. Traditionally people decorate entrances of their houses and shops for "The God of the Year" because "The God of the Year" is a god who will bring a good harvest to each family. In other words, Japanese invite a god of harvest every New Year.
The decorations at entrances of shops and houses in the photos on the left hand side are the guides to invite "The God of the Year". People prepare decorations of rice cakes at home for the offerings as in the center photo below which shows a rice cake with a snowman shape called "Kagami-mochi" and a little monkey on the top. The reason of the monkey decoration on top of the offering is that 2016 is a Year of Monkey from the twelve animal cycle of Chinese zodiac, but other decorations can be also used.
Thus at the end of December each year, shops sell these decorations as in the photos on the right hand side. Today is December 31st, but actually people prepare these decorations a little earlier, around 28th, because the 31st would be too late to invite "The God of the Year".
I also put the New Year decorations at home a couple of days ago and I wish coming 2016 a good year for everybody!
Thank you for reading my post this year!!
This year December 22nd was the winter solstice day. There are some traditional customs for the day in Japan and of course it includes food.
Since old times it is said that eating pumpkins and rice porridges with red beans is good for your health. Especially eating pumpkins is a common custom for the winter solstice day all over Japan, so every year grocery shops sell lots of pumpkins on the day.
According to an old saying, you won't get sick if you eat pumpkins on the winter solstice day. Also it means wishing a good fortune. The photo on the left hand side is showing a typical Japanese pumpkin dish "Kabocha-no-nimono". It is a boiled pumpkin with soy sauce and sugar. I also added some shiitake mushrooms and Yuzu peel for additional flavor.
Yuzu is a Japanese citrus that has a wonderful aroma. It is used a lot for Japanese winter seasonal dishes for flavor. However a major usage of Yuzu on the winter solstice day is not cooking. People put whole Yuzu fruits in their bath tab when they take a bath and enjoy the Yuzu aroma bath. The hot water with Yuzu fruits can make people's body warmer than plain hot water and people say the Yuzu aroma bath can prevent catching a cold.
Why people started these customs on the winter solstice day? Apparently the winter solstice day marks the start of a big traditional season's cycle since night is longest on that day. People in old times thought darkness becomes maximum on the day, but on the other hand it was considered as a re-start day because daytime starts to get longer from now on. The sun is recovering the power. Thus people believed things are getting better from the winter solstice day, and that may be the reason people started to practice the customs with a wish for good future.
So if you didn't eat pumpkins and didn't take a Yuzu aroma bath on the 22nd, don't worry, you have survived the day of maximum darkness!
Seemed like Mt. Fuji pretended to be higher than usual this morning (The photo on the left hand side above). I'm showing her usual height on the right hand side to make a comparison.
Moreover, about 30 minutes later, she was even posing as if she got a smoke like the photo on the left hand side below.
By the way, I'm keep writing Mt. Fuji as "she" because Mt. Fuji is considered as a goddess in Japanese Shinto and Japanese myth. The name of the Goddess is "Konohana-no-sakuya Hime". It is said that the meaning of the name is "Princess who is as beautiful as blooming flowers".
However, it seems like she is funny sometimes.
There are more photos of her on "Today's Fuji" page on my other blog.
