A gentle coloring page of hatsumode, the first shrine or temple visit of the Japanese New Year. It suits a lesson about New Year customs or a winter craft session, and it prints cleanly on plain paper. Free to download; no registration is needed. Two children in kimono stand with their hands together at a large offering box, and the slatted lid of that box is the only repeated pattern on the page — keeping it pale is what holds the two figures in front.
Hatsumode is the first visit of the year to a shrine or a temple, made in the days just after New Year. People go to ask for health and good fortune in the year ahead, and it is one of the best-known Japanese New Year customs — the busiest shrines usually draw queues that reach well outside the grounds on January 1.
🎍 What decorations go with the New Year?
New Year decorations include the kadomatsu, the shimenawa and the kagami-mochi. The kadomatsu — pine and cut bamboo beside the door — is a marker so the deity of the new year can find the house; the shimenawa is a straw rope showing that a space has been made clean and set apart; and the kagami-mochi, two stacked rice cakes with a bitter orange on top, is left out as an offering.
🙏 How do you pray?
At a shrine you drop a coin into the offering box, ring the bell, and then follow the pattern called ni-rei ni-hakushu ichi-rei: two bows, two claps, one more bow. At a temple there is no clapping — you put your hands together quietly instead.
