Hinamatsuri ／ひな祭り

fumira.jp

I am sooo excited that Hinamatsuri (ひなまつり）is coming up in a few weeks! In English, it is called the “Doll Festival”. The date is easy to remember… 3/3, March 3rd. (Children’s Day is 5/5, also easy to remember). My mom always got out the hina dolls (ひなにんぎょう) around this time of the year. I always thought they looked really creepy (see an example here), but apparently, they help drive out bad spirits. My mom always took them down as soon as Hinamatsuri was over. There’s an old wives tale that says the longer you keep the display up after the holiday is over, the longer it will take for your daughters to get married. Well, I guess it worked, because I got married at the very average age of 25!

It is also customary to eat pretty food like chirashi-zushi, strawberry daifuku, hishimochi, hina-arare, and ushiojiru. Man, I am craving ichigo-daifuku so bad right now! I may have to make them soon!

I decided to do a post about Hinamatsuri a little early, because I have found sooo many fun things you can do, so I wanted to share those with you asap so you have time to try as many as you want 🙂

Arts and Crafts:

1) Kids@NIFTY: Crafts, recipes, games, coloring pages, etc.

2) Origami-club: make everything for a hina-doll display

3) Leeのきょうざいかん: A hiragana worksheet that includes March events like Hinamatsuri and graduation

4) ぬりえやさん: Cute Hinamatsuri coloring page

5) ぬりえランド: More Hinamatsuri coloring pages

6) Mansei: Printable PDF for a 3D Ohinasama display (scroll down to March)

7) Canon Creative Park: If you are up for a challenge, another ohinasama display to make with folded paper(if anyone makes this successfully, I’d love to see a picture of it)

8) Print Out Factory: For a simpler ohinasama display (scroll to the middle of the page)

9) Hinamatsuri.com: The name says it all… all kinds of Hinamatsuri printables and crafts!

Music:

1) Here are the lyrics (and melody) to the song, “Happy Hinamatsuri” 「うれしいひな祭り」from Amic Co., Ltd.

2) AWESOME! There’s a new Hinamatsuri album you can buy on Amazon.com called “Ureshii Hinamatsuri: Songs for Japanese Doll Festival / Girls Day／うれしいひなまつりベスト“- 99 cents per song or $8.99 for all 20 songs!

3) A song that teaches you how to draw a hina ningyou at teasobi.com

Food:

1) A recipe for Ichigo (strawberry) Daifuku from All About (YUM!!)

(make sure you check out my post about ichigo daifuku!)

2) I really want to make these Hinamatsuri candies from la Fuji Mama this year!

***

And if those aren’t enough resources for ya, there’s TONS more at koos.com that I don’t feel like clicking through right now. If you look at all the links and come across a great one, please share with us!

Check back on this post next week because I’ll  keep adding resources as I find them. Yeah for GIRLS!

2012 UPDATE:

 

image from happylilac.net

I found another adorable hinamatsuri craft for your kids (see image above). Click HERE for the printable, and HERE for the instructions!