New Year is coming soon!!

Hello. This is Hiro from J-Hoppers Hiroshima.

It is the end of November already!We have only a month left this year!!
Are you ready for 2016??

In japan, New Year's Day is the most important holiday. So in late December is the busiest times for us as we have a lot of things to get ready for the coming year.

One of the most important thing to do is writing New Year's cards.

Have you ever heard about Nengajo?

Instead of sending Christmas cards, we send special postcards called nengajo to our friends and relatives. Nengajo should arrive on New Year's day so we must finish writing and post them by December 25th and the post office will stocks them in late December, and delivers them on January 1st all at once.
The most popular design of nengajo is illustrations of the animal for the coming year under the Chinese zodiac,which moves in a12 year cycle.
(rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, boar)
Next year is year of monkey!!!

Recently many people creating original cards with their personal computers.
But we can buy them at post offices or stores which already decorated.Or we can also decorate by ourselves using a lot of decorating items(colore markers, stamps, stickers etc.)

One thing that we have to be careful is.. Not send to people who have had a relative pass away during the year.
In this case, we send a simple post card to friends and relatives to let them know about it, so they won't send joyful New Year's card.


If you have a chance to go to the post office or stores where they sell New Year's cards during your stay in Japan,just go look them!You may know why nengajo is so important for Japanese people!!



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