It’s almost the end of December, end of 2015..  We are a few days away from New Years. Are you ready for 2016? In U.S., Christmas might be one of the biggest holidays, but in Japan, New Years is actually a bigger holiday for most families. In this post today, let me share with you how Japanese people get ready for New Years. It actually starts around mid December.

煤払い（すすばらい、susu harai）

煤払い means literally, “sweeping or  house cleaning”. Traditionally, December 13th is the day to start year end house cleaning. (This is similar to Spring Cleaning in U.S.) Idea is that we clean our house as much as we can and prepare our surroundings in cleaner condition before we get ready for New Years.

門松　（かどまつ、Kadomatsu）

門松, as you can see from the pictures above, are New Year’s decorations made of bamboo and flowers. Always placed in pairs in front of the entrance. Kadomatsu is a sign for spirit of Kami (Japanese Shinto God) to come down and visit your place. Without it, you will have no spirit of Kami (good luck) visiting your place.  Traditionally, it is said that the best day to place these Kadomatsu is December 28th in preparation of New Years.

しめ飾り（しめかざり、Shime kazari）

しめ飾り is another decoration item to place before New Year. This one is normally placed on top of the front entrance.  It is placed as an indication of sacred (cleaned) place to welcome Toshi gami sama (年神様、としがみさま) and to keep bad spirits away from the house.

鏡餅（かがみもち、Kagami mochi）

鏡餅 is placed somewhere inside the house to secure a place for spirit of Kami to stay in your house.  Traditionally, mochi is considered as a scared food, and has been used for festival or holidays when people celebrate for something.

Kagami (鏡) means “mirror”, and Mochi (餅) means “rice cake”. The round shape of Mochi came from what was considered as a shape of a person’s soul, and it happened to be the same round shape as the mirror that is used for Shinto events. Therefore, it is called, “Kagami Mochi (鏡餅)”.  The reason we place two of them together on top of each other is because, one is considered as “moon” and the other as “sun”, which both together considered “good luck”.

If you are in Japan this time of the year, you will see these decorations everywhere!