Saijiki for January

These are some poetic words to use for gomei for the month of January:

• Shoukan (小寒): The 23rd solar term (see Wikipedia entry); Literally “little cold”
• Jinjitsu (人日): The 7th of January, one of the five lunar festivals; traditionally celebrated as the day human beings were created (see Wikipedia entry); Literally “man/person day”
• Daikan (大寒): The coldest time of the year, around January 20th; literally “big cold”
• Hatsuharu (初春): beginning of spring; first month of the lunar calendar; New Year
• Matsunouchi (松の内): New Year’s Week festivities
• Matsusugi (松過ぎ): after New Year’s Week
• Nenohi (子の日): collecting herbs and pulling out young pine trees by the roots (annual event held on the first day of the rat of the New Year)
• Wakamizu (若水): first water drawn from a well on New Year’s Day
• Toso (屠蘇): spiced sake (served at New Year’s)
• Hourai (蓬莱): New Year decoration (made from food, different in different places but typically white rice); also, enchanted land of perpetual youth from Chinese mythology