The Japanese housewife must feel, when December has been successfully passed, like the Yankee who had noticed that if he lived through the month of March he generally lived through the rest of the year. The observances of January, for which December has been one long preparation, begin with the rising of the New Year's sun, and continue in one form or another for about two weeks. Almost every day has its special food and its special festival duty. For the first three days the very best clothes in the wardrobe are worn by everybody, then till the seventh the second best, and from the seventh to the end of the month new clothes, though not the very best, must be worn. Within the first seven days every man in Japan is expected to call on all his friends and acquaintances, but the women, probably out of consideration for the many duties that the festival season puts upon them, are given until March to finish up their New Year's calls. The streets of the cities, and even of the small villages, are full of life and interest for a week or two. _Kurumayas_ in their new winter liveries trundle around fathers and mothers and happy children. All manner of mummers, musicians, and dancers go from house to house in search of custom. The _manzai_, who, with dances and songs and strange grimaces, undertake to drive out from your house for the new year all the devils who may have been residing there hitherto, are a special feature of this season. In every garden and in the public streets little girls, their faces freshly covered with white paint, their shining black hair newly dressed, their wing-sleeved kimonos gorgeous with many colors, play battledore and shuttlecock, toss small bags half filled with rice, or pat balls wound with shining silk to the accompaniment of a weird little chant. For the boys there are kites of many shapes and colors, or tops that they spin under every one's feet, well knowing that no one in Japan is too busy to turn aside for a child's pleasure. The very horses--small, shock-headed, evil-tempered beasts, who drag tremendous loads with many snorts and snaps at their masters--are decked out with gay streamers that reach nearly to the ground, at the ends of which are tinkling bells. The festival season closes on the fifteenth and sixteenth with a visit to the temple of Yemma, the god of hell, and with a holiday for all the apprentices.