Omisoka (New Year's Eve)

What Is Omisoka?

December 31st is Omisoka, the last day of the year. Misoka originally meant the final day of any month -- it was also written with the characters for "thirtieth day." The last misoka of the year takes the prefix ō, "great," hence Omisoka. Under the old lunar calendar that day was the 30th; today it means December 31. It is the day for finishing preparations to receive the New Year deity and drawing a line under the year.

Why Misoka Is Also Read "Tsugomori"

The same word can be read tsugomori, thought to be a contraction of tsuki-gomori, "the moon going into hiding." The old calendar ran on the moon's phases: at the end of each month the crescent thinned until it disappeared. The day the moon hid was the tsugomori, and the last one of the year was the ōtsugomori. The character used for misoka carries the sense of darkness and a moonless sky on its own.

Toshikoshi Soba Goes Back to the Mid-Edo Period

Year-crossing soba grew out of misoka soba, a habit among Edo-period merchant households of eating soba at each month's end. The last day of the month meant collecting payments and taking stock, and soba could be ordered in and eaten quickly. Only the December version survived as a fixed observance. Ōsaka Hanka Fudoki, published in 1814, already describes toshikoshi soba, so the custom was established by then at the latest.

• Long life: the long, thin noodles are said to stand for a long life and lasting connections
• Cutting off misfortune: soba breaks easily, so eating it is said to sever the year's hardships
• Gathering wealth: goldsmiths used buckwheat dough to collect scattered gold dust, lending soba an association with gathering money
• Timing: carrying noodles into the new year is considered unlucky, so the bowl is finished before midnight

Why 108 Bell Strikes? There Is More Than One Answer

Late on New Year's Eve, temples ring their bells 108 times. The best-known explanation is that 108 is the number of worldly desires that trouble a person, but it is not the only one. Another counts the four sufferings and eight sufferings as 4x9 plus 8x9, which totals 108; another adds the 12 months, the 24 solar terms and the 72 microseasons. Which is correct has never been settled.

What Built the Modern Omisoka

NHK's Kōhaku Uta Gassen began on January 3, 1951, as a radio program. It was a New Year's broadcast at first, and only moved to New Year's Eve with the fourth edition on December 31, 1953 -- meaning 1953 saw two of them, one in January and one in December. The familiar sequence of watching the show, eating soba, hearing the temple bells and going out for the first shrine visit took shape gradually in the postwar decades.

Tips for Marking This Day

• Make toshikoshi soba with family and talk through the year while you eat
• Join the bell-ringing at a nearby temple
• Decide which shrine you will visit first and how you will get there
• Write down ten good things from the year and close it out with some gratitude

Closing One Year, Opening the Next

Omisoka is an ending and a preparation at once. In 2026 it falls on a Thursday. Take a little time to look back, and have a good year ahead.