How was your New Year's holiday?

Hello everyone.
This is NAGINOWA staff.

2025 has come to an end, and we've entered 2026.
Is it just me, or does time seem to pass faster each year?

How did everyone spend the New Year's holidays?
When it comes to the end of the year in America, the ball drop at Times Square is world-famous, right?
Also, having a relaxed home party with family and friends seems to be common.

Now, as you may know, Japan has distinctive ways of spending the year-end and New Year holidays.
First, the standard year-end and New Year holiday period in Japan is generally December 29th to January 3rd,
a precious time of year when everyone can take a long break together.

The year-end tradition of deep cleaning spread from the idea of tidying up the house and starting fresh for the New Year.
Let's keep the hassle a secret (lol)
When welcoming the New Year, while it varies by person, many choose to relax at home, visit shrines for hatsumōde, or go see the first sunrise.
On January 2nd and 3rd, most people relax at home with their families.
And when it comes to Japanese New Year, nothing beats osechi cuisine.
Each dish carries a wish, making it widely known as a traditional Japanese dish and a symbol of good fortune.
Of course, I ate it too.
There are so many types that I can't possibly list them all, but I'll introduce a few.

- Red and White Fish Cake
Made by steaming minced white fish, this red and white fish cake is an osechi dish whose half-elliptical shape symbolizes the rising sun. The red color wards off evil spirits, while white signifies purity. It's also characterized by the traditional serving method of placing the auspicious red on the right (“right red, left white”).

- Chestnut Paste (Kuri Kinton)
Chestnut paste is a sweet osechi dish made by blending chestnuts with sweet potatoes into a paste. Dyed golden yellow using gardenia, a natural coloring agent, it symbolizes wealth and savings. Its name also plays on the phrase “winning chestnuts” (katchi kuri), making it popular for wishing good luck in competitions.

- Datemaki
Datemaki is a vibrant osechi dish made by baking a mixture of eggs and minced fish. Its appearance, shaped neatly using a bamboo mat, resembles a scroll (maki-mono), symbolizing wishes for increased knowledge and academic success. Another theory suggests it was named “Datemaki” after the stylish and flamboyant warlord Date Masamune.

- Red and White Pickled Vegetables
Red and white pickled vegetables are an osechi dish made by thinly slicing carrots and daikon radish and seasoning them with sweet vinegar. Said to resemble the red and white mizuhiki decorative cords used for celebrations, they are cherished as a representative dish among auspicious vinegared dishes.

- Black Soybeans
Black soybeans are a New Year's dish simmered sweetly in soy sauce and sugar. Black has long been considered a color that wards off evil spirits, and the dish carries the wish for the eater to work vigorously and healthily, as if sun-kissed.

Besides osechi dishes, we also eat ozoni soup and mochi rice cakes. We just eat and eat and eat nonstop.
After enjoying three days of eating during New Year's, work and school start again—even though we don't want to go back.

For me as a Japanese person, spending the year-end and New Year's holidays this way felt like a normal tradition. But I was surprised to learn it's actually quite rare globally.
It might be interesting to look into how people celebrate in different countries.

I don't think I'll be able to shake off the New Year mood for a while yet.
Have you all returned to your daily routines already?
Wow.
I'd almost want to ask someone to take care of my bonsai for me for another week or so.

Well then, I'm getting sleepy, so I'll wrap things up here for today.

NAGINOWA is an e-commerce store offering high-quality Japanese bonsai pots and gardening supplies.  
In our staff blog, the staff who run this e-commerce store in Japan write about their daily lives as they please.  
  
NAGINOWA Staff