In Japan, the New Year's celebration is the biggest, most celebrated holiday of the year. The women spend the entire week before cleaning and cooking, to prepare for the onslaught of family and friends over 3 days time. People send out New Year's cards to family and friends, and the airports are swamped with people traveling home to be with their families.
Well, we didn't go to quite that extreme, but we decided that it would be fun to honor Zuke's Japanese heritage and celebrate New Year's, Japanese style. We did, in fact, clean our house, and spent most of the day on New Year's cooking up a storm in our kitchen. We invited some friends over, and served them a huge feast of traditional Japanese food. We served chicken & shrimp stir-fry, soba, tori karaage, mochi, onigiri, sushi, gyoza, nori maki, fortune cookies, and pocky sticks. I wish I had remembered to take pictures that night...there was so much food!
The Japanese also have a New Year's tradition of giving the children money, treats, and small gifts, so we put together some small treat bags for all of the kids. They were so excited! The kids then retired down to the boys' room to watch a movie, while us adults stayed upstairs and played Apples to Apples. (Can you tell I love that game?) It was such a fun night, and we hope to make it an annual tradition in our home! What better way to welcome in a new year than to be surrounded by family, friends, and amazing food? Happy New Year!
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1 comment:
That sounds so fun! Glad you had a good time!
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