Japanese New Year Greetings & Handsel

Welcoming the New Year is the most important holiday activity and the most exciting celebratory event for the Japanese. The new year celebration is called “nenga” in Japan. Although many things are westernized in modern Japanese society, they still observe nenga in the traditional way: eating osechi ryouri (new year dishes), going to hatsumoude (the first shrine visit), and decorating houses with conventional ornaments like kadomatsu (pine tree decoration), shimenawa (a rope made with rice straw), and kagamimochi (round rice cakes to offer to the gods). These are just some of the many things they do only during this period.

Reading nenga-jou (new year’s postcards) is another thing the Japanese enjoy on New Year’s Day. Japanese customarily send new year’s postcards to their friends, relatives, co-workers, and business clients. This is similar to the Western custom of sending cards during the winter holiday season, but in Japan people consider it important that nenga-jou are delivered exactly on January 1st . Naturally, this day is the busiest day of the year for Japan Post because they have to meet everybody’s wish to get their nenga-jou delivered on time. In order to achieve this mission, they even hire part-time workers to help deliver all the nenga-jou. Although E-cards are becoming increasingly popular, Japanese people still keep the custom of sending New Year’s greetings via snail mail.

Nenga-jou usually have a new year’s message illustrated with graphics symbolizing the new year such as the sunrise, a plum tree, kadomatsu and kagamimochi. They are also commonly decorated with one of the 12 eto animals: mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. Every year is represented by a specific animal, and the eto for 2010 is tora or the tiger.

Among the many oshougatsu activities, otoshidama is the most exciting one for children. Otoshidama is originally a gift to celebrate the new year, but the word mainly refers to money given to children from older people during the holiday. Otoshidama are handed out in a small envelope called a pochibukuro.

The Japan Post issues its own version of otoshidama in the form of nenga-jou with a lottery number at the bottom of the postcard. This is the most common type of nenga-jou the Japanese use. At the end of January, Japan Post discloses the winning numbers and the winners can exchange their nenga-jou for items like an LCD HD TV monitor, a notebook personal computer, a digital camera, an air purifier and humidifier, regional delicacies and memorial stamps.