I just returned from celebrating Hatsugama in honor of O-Shogatsu with my tea friends. O-shogatsu means "New Year" and Hatsugama is the first tea ceremony of the year. My friend Tara served tea chabako style. Chabako is a picnic style tea ceremony, or "Tea in the wild". All the tea tools are a bit smaller and come in a wooden box. It was beautiful in her tea house with both the sun and the cold.
I love the decorations used to celebrate the New Year in Japan. I remembered that I bought a rubber stamp of a shimekazari when I was there. Shimekazari are hung over the doorways and signify that the home is a temporary residence of Toshigami, the divinity that brings good luck at the beginning of the new year.
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