cars master zone: Celebrating Our New Year

---osechi-ryori---

The holidays for me has always been about my family at the bukid of tralala, party and food and it' s our first time to celebrate our New Year without my Mother-In-Law ( she's in the hospital since last week of November due to an accident) but still enjoyed a well- deserved break without having much hassles in the kitchen( well, sort of lol! I made an Iridori without the chicken because there's no meat inside their fridge ) and managed to keep up the tradition. My Sister-In-Law bought ready-made osechi-ryori ,a traditional New Year foods with meanings---they can be kept for days without putting them inside the fridge. I'm not really familiar of the meanings but here' s some of them: kurumame ( a slow simmered sweet black soybeans means fertility ), a lucky color pink and white kamaboko( fishcakes), datemaki, konbu ( a kind of seaweed means joy) and because of the sweetness of a ready-made kurikinton, my MIL usually made her homemade kurikinton(candied chestnuts and sweet potato means wealth ). In order to start the year in the most positive and pure way possible, the whole house was given a cleaning on December 31 ( same as cooking too, so that on January 1st can be spent with families and friends and yes, we cleaned our apartment too before we left ), took a bathe, prayed for good health and fortune for the coming years ( the buddist way )and started our dinner festives. My Father In Law went to see the first sunrise of the new year and went to the temple and gave us omamori(a japanese amulet). I wish too someday to be able to watch the first sunrise, it's really freezing cold out there because it's by the sea.