Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu! (Happy New Year) Welcome to the (Japanese) Year of the Rabbit! May your life in 2011 be like a cruise ship buffet - everything you could ever hope to want and then some.

It was an event a week in the making. It was the most epic Oshogatsu preparation ever. Let's hope next year's is a tad more tame. This Oshogatsu, I mailed out 30 nengajo to 15 states and 3 countries. I also mailed gifts, which was a new thing this time around. It was an effort to spread a little joy and start the new year with a happy surprise. Oshogatsu is all about new beinnings, and in that vein is also about redemption. The gifts I sent put were things that I wanted to be given a new life in the hands of people that could really use them.

The Week Before - Osoji

It began with my a good friend lending me his truck to haul wooden pallets and firewood. That should give you an idea of just how big this little Oshogatsu project of mine was going to be. I started the Sunday before New Year's Day with cleaning to such a degree that the cats were convinced I was moving again, and as a result became very upset. They hate moving. At one point they colonized my lap while I was sorting stuff in an effort to root me in place. I tried repeatedly to comfort them, but they were inconsolable. For the next two days my entire house looked like this:

Keep in mind these stacks of boxes were in most cases as tall as I am. I cleaned out every closet, the loft space, and the corner of the house that was formerly known as The Black Hole. I wish I had thought to take a picture of The Black Hole before I destroyed it, because it was left in an utter state of devastation. So was the loft space. It took 5 trash bags to clean out all the trash left up there. Empty bottles, wrappers, discarded papers, opened and forgotten mail... that was actually the hardest space to clean.

But before I could begin the process of putting my home back together, I had to deal with the basement. The space that I had originally claimed to put down the pallets ended up getting filled in with junk at some point by other tenants in the building, so then I had to clean the basement - well, at least enough of it to make room for my three pallets. That took quite a bit of doing, and was nasty work, but in the end I had the room I needed. It was then time to start transporting boxes down my three flights of terrifying stairs and into the basement. I attempted doing this with my hand truck, but it failed catastrophically, so I carried them all down in stacks of twos and threes. It took me two days. I fell in the process, tearing a muscle in my back and adding to the discomfort of a cracked rib from falling on an icy sidewalk the week before. But in the end, this is what I accomplished:





Believe me when I say that picture does not do justice to the sheer volume of stuff on those three pallets. But I am very proud of all that I accomplished and very, very pleased with the results. I swear my little Treehouse feels like it just randomly grew by about 200 square feet. So after all the boxes were gone, I cleaned. And then I cleaned again. And then I cleaned some more - all part of osoji, which is ritual cleaning in preparation for Oshogatsu.

And here is the ultimate result of a week's worth of osoji:





This little nook at the end of my kitchen is known as The Round, because, well, it's round. I cleaned it out in an effort to get going on my Oshogatsu resolution of turning The Round into my office. I've been wanting to do that since I've lived here. It's high time I got on that.





As part of the osoji tradition, I cleaned out the fireplace of all its ashes, which included the ashes of my regrets, which I had burned in the fireplace previously. It was the last act of cleaning that I performed, done on Omisoka (see below).





The above is the result of me reclaiming The Black Hole. It went from a blue dwarf to a red giant, all with a little interior design magic. And I spent nothing to transform this space. It was all done from repurposed items. After putting the house all together, I did a banishing and blessing ritual to cleanse everything of its previous attachments and purify them. As a part of this, I washed everything fabric that I own - blankets, sheets, comforters, clothes - everything. What's sad is that everything I own fit comfortably in two 50lb washers.





I was going to turn the red giant into my new kamidana space, but it wouldn't fit where I wanted it to go. So for now it's just a pretty room until I can rework the layout in a way that makes sense and will accommodate everything.

On the Thursday before Oshogatsu, I went to Choi's Asian Market with my two best friends to do a little grocery shopping. I bought daikon, renkon, gobo, nappa cabbage, mochi, and a variety of other things for making osechi ryori. If you want to see the food, see this .

Omisoka

Omisoka (New Year's Eve) was spent cooking for the most part. Traditionally, soba is served as the Omisoka meal, so I made Triple Threat (see this ). It. Was. Awesome. I also started the prep work for osechi ryori. When all of that was said and done, I closed the day with the traditional burning of regrets in the fireplace. Before I went to bed, I opened all of the windows in the house to let the New Year in and to let the heat out. It was 70 degrees outside at night on the last day of December. I was incredulous.

Me setting my regrets alight, and...





watching them burn away. Afterward, the fireplace was cleaned out and the wood for hatsuki was laid.



It was all hands on deck with osechi cooking in the back and toshikoshi soba cooking in the front and on its way to becoming Triple Threat.

Oshogatsu

Oshogatsu is all about firsts, and we celebrate every first... well... everything. I distinctly remembered my dream as my alarm woke me up. Hatsuyume (first dream) went like this: I was on a quest for… something. I think it was some type of food related item. Everyone I asked said they didn’t have it, but instead offered me some alternative, all of which I politely declined. I don’t recall if I ever found the item or not, but I do know that I never gave up looking. So the take home message of hatsuyume: don’t trade down for something you don’t really want. The wait for what you really want is worth it.

I got up before sunrise, received my first phone call and first texts (12 of them), then took the first shower. I then went outside and awaited the dawn. It was grey and rainy, so there was no clear first sunrise, but I toasted the sun where I thought it would be:





Hatsuhinode - First Sunrise


I then came inside and lit the first fire, which I made small and did not tend long, because the day started out so warm:










Hatsuki - First Fire




Kakizome - First Calligraphy

I photoshopped in the letters to spell out what each of the hiragana characters say. It spells Kibo(u), which means "hope."

The first gift was brought to me by one of my best friends :




Hatsushinmotsu - First Gift



A detail of hatsushinmotsu, because it's not just a daruma doll bracelet, it's a HAND PAINTED WITH AMAZING DETAIL DARUMA BRACELET! The skill in creating this thing is incredible. I love it so much, but I'm afraid to wear it because I don't want to damage it! It's a one of a kind! And sorry I went all Billy Mays on you there. I got kind of excited.

First letter was this year plural. Much to my surprise, the mail ran on New Year's Day (I didn't think it did), so I got mail on Oshogatsu. In it was a card from a friend in Arizona (right). I was also hand delivered a card from  my other best friend (left).




Hatsudayori - First Letters


This year was a first first - I received my first textbook in the mail on Oshoatsu. Auspicious? Methinks so!





Yes, I'm taking inorganic next semester. Yes, that sucks, but I'm still excited about it and looking forward to it.

The first sunset and the first moon (hatsutsuki) were both hidden behind a wall of grey, but I took a picture of it anyway, because tradition is tradition:




Hatsubanshyoo - First Sunset


My kigo haiku I actually posted to facebook   as a status:
The guests gone
The dishes washed
Another holiday ended

I closed out Oshogatsu with my first shrine visit, which once again involved the great and arduous trek to my bedroom. I had much to be thankful for, as this past year was bountiful in its blessings (you can read all about that here ).




Hatsumode - First Shrine Visit


My predictions for last year  were completely wrong. I interpreted the signs to be a kind of bell curve year. In fact, it took a total nosedive, hit rock bottom toward the middle of the year, then skyrocketed to the moon after that. It was a wild roller coaster of a year that went in with a whimper and out with a roar of victory. So this year I am not going to interpret the signs, because I really don't think this year will be grey and sluggish with a bright spot in the middle. I think this year will be another one for the record books, perhaps one that will change the face of my personal history. A lot rides on what happens this year, and I am ready to meet those challenges.