Omamori

In Japan, New Years is a bigger holiday than Christmas (which is mostly just a time when you eat fried chicken and white cake with strawberries on it). At midnight on December 31st, or within the next couple of days, you do something called hatsumode. This is a shrine visit. You head over to the local shrine and climb the steps, which are usually lined with stalls (like at a carnival) selling toys and treats like yakisoba or candy-covered strawberries! When you get to the shrine, you wait in line to pull on a rope and ring a bell, then you go to get your fortune by shaking a box to make a stick come out. Your fortune is on a piece of paper and, if you are me, is really hard to read - so you get someone to read it for you. Then you tie it to a tree branch or a fence or something. (Oh, you also throw a little money into the shrine, and sometimes there is a little sake to drink - for good luck).

Anyway, what I'm getting at is, after all of this, you go to a little stall run by the shrine and you buy a little good luck charm called an omamori. These are usually good for one year, then (if you live where I did) you go to burn them a few weeks later at the Naked Festival!

Doesn't all of that sound more fun than wearing stupid hats, watching a ball drop on TV, drinking champagne, and kissing somebody?

Anyway, as a New Year's gift, I got omamori for me and my friends! I ordered them from J-List. Because they come from Japan, the shipping is a little expensive and it takes a little longer, but it's worth it for a happy, healthy, lucky new year! Go check it out.

Here's a website where you can read about New Years in Japan, though it doesn't include everything. Here's another one.