Regular Annual Events in Japan

�@�@�@The day on which the birth of the new year is celebrated. No body works on the first three days of the new year, the period called sanga nichi, or shogatsu. Shogatsu originally referred to the whole of January, but now is used to refer to these three days. On these days, the people go to shrines, visit friends and relatives, drink sake and eat special new year dishes, called osechi. Children play (Japanese) cards, battledore and shuttlecock and fly kites. Shimenawa, sacred rice-straw ropes, are hung across the top of the gateway, which is also decorated with pine boughs or kadomatsu (gate pines). The kadomatsu symbolizes a tree provided for the descent of gods. This pine decoration is left in place from January the first to the seventh (until the fifteenth in olden times), the period referred to as matsu no uchi.

(From "Nippon-The Land and Its People-"written by Nippon Steel Resources Development, published by Gakuseisha Publishing Co.,Ltd.)