Traditional New Year

Indispensable Traditional Food 

When someone ask me what is my family tradition, the first thing that comes to my head is New Year’s Eve. I love December 31st and January 1st because all of the family members gather together on those days. My mother has lived in my hometown for her whole time, and my father married into her family. Therefore, my mother’s mother, my grandmother, also lives near my house. All of my three of brothers are living separately now, but they always come back to the hometown on the New Year’s Eve. I really love traditional food of the New Year. 

Through December 31st to January 3rd, there are some traditional food; tohikoshi-soba and osechi. Toshkoshi-soba is our tradition that we eat noodles before the change of year, so that we can live healthily through the year. When the clock turns to elven o’clock at night on December 31st, my mother starts to prepare for toshikoshi-soba. Even though I am full, I can still eat all of toshikoshi-soba because it is very good. Osechi is specially-prepared New Year’s dishes that we eat during the first three days of January. Various kinds of beautifully-prepared dishes are set in three-tiered lacquer boxes. Each of the dishes in the box has some auspicious meaning which reflects people’s wishes, such as good health, happiness, prosperity, and long life. For example, lobsters represents longevity because their bodies are bent like an old man’s. Recipes is passed down within the family, and usually mothers and grandmothers cook it. 

Our New Year’s traditional food; osechi and toshikoshi-soba are indispensable. I cannot survive the year if these traditional food is taken away. When I wake up on the first day of the year, osechi is well prepared on the table, and it is very beautiful. It is like a treasure box to me.  

Osechi

Toshikoshi-soba