Ōmisoka
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Template:Nihongo or Template:Nihongo is a Japanese traditional celebration on the last day of the year. Traditionally, it was held on the final day of the 12th lunar month. With Japan's switch to using the Gregorian calendar at the beginning of the Meiji era, it is now used on New Year's Eve to celebrate the new year.
Origins
Etymology
The last day of each month of the Japanese lunisolar calendar was historically named Template:Nihongo. Originally, "miso" was written as 三十, indicating the 30th day, though misoka sometimes fell on the 29th due to the varying lengths of the lunar month. The last day in the 12th lunar month is called Template:Nihongo—with the 大 indicating it is the final last day of the month for that year—or the "great thirtieth day".<ref name="sosnoski 1996">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="tanaka 2004">Template:Cite book</ref> As part of the Meiji Restoration, Japan switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1873, and ōmisoka was set as December 31, or New Year's Eve.<ref name="nic">Template:Cite web</ref> The day is also known by the archaic pronunciation of Template:Nihongo.<ref name="sosnoski 1996"/><ref name="nishitsunoi 1958">Template:Cite book</ref> This is a shortened version of Template:Nihongo, meaning "last day of the month".<ref name="sosnoski 1996"/>
Activities
Traditionally, important activities for the concluding year and day were completed in order to start the new year fresh.<ref name="tanaka 2004"/> Some of these include house cleaning, repaying debts, purification (such as driving out evil spirits and bad luck), and bathing so the final hours of the year could be spent relaxing. Recently, families and friends often gather for parties, including the viewing of the over four-hour Template:Nihongo on NHK, or more recently to watch large mixed martial arts cards.<ref name="sosnoski 1996"/> This custom has its roots in the ancient Japanese culture surrounding Template:Nihongo or Template:Nihongo, which revolved around the practice of showing reverence toward the gods of the current and upcoming years.
About an hour before the New Year, people often gather together for one last time in the old year to have a bowl of toshikoshi soba or toshikoshi udon together—a tradition based on people's association of eating the long noodles with "crossing over from one year to the next", which is the meaning of toshi-koshi. While the noodles are often eaten plain, or with chopped scallions, in some localities people top them with tempura. Traditionally, families make osechi on the last few days of the year. The food is then consumed during the first several days of the new year in order to "[welcome] the 'deity of the year' to each household" and "[wish] for happiness throughout the year".<ref name="washoku maff">Template:Cite web</ref>
At midnight, many visit a shrine or temple for Hatsumōde, or the first shrine/temple visit of the year. Throughout Japan, Shinto shrines prepare amazake to pass out to crowds that gather as midnight approaches. Most Buddhist temples have a large bonshō (Buddhist bell) that is struck once for each of the 108 earthly temptations believed to cause human suffering.<ref name="kanagawa 2000">Template:Cite book</ref> The bell ringing tradition is known as joya no kane (除夜の鐘).
When seeing someone for the last time before the new year, it is traditional to say Template:Nihongo. The traditional first greeting after the beginning of the New Year is Template:Nihongo.<ref name="kanagawa 2000"/>
This celebration is the equivalent of New Year's Eve in the Western world, and coincides with Saint Sylvester's Day celebrated by some Western Christian churches.