Our
Annual Nenga-jo
(New Year Greetings Cards)
| There is a different animal for every
year in the Chinese and Japanese calendars. It goes on a 12 year cycle.
The tradition in Japan is to send out
Nenga-jo, or New Year Greeting Cards that arrive on January 1st. They
are postcards and usually have a theme that is related to the animal for
that year.
The year 2006 is the
Year of the Dog. If you would like to
see our newest Nenga-jo, please click the link above.
We do the same, though instead of buying
them, we like to make them ourselves. Please take a look at the nenga-jo
we have created to date. |
Previous Years Nenga-jo
 Our
dog is a real tiger! Actually we didn't start the tradition of using the
animals until 1999.
 You
can see that our dog Tug is a rabbit, pounding rice into rice cakes on the
moon. This is what they see in Japan when they look at the moon.
Nenga-jo for
2000 (The
Year of the Dragon)
 Our
dragon is very fierce as you can see! He has me in his crushing grasp. But
wait! Who is that sneaking up behind him, ready to rescue me?
Nenga-jo for 2001
(The Year of the Snake)
 Snakes
can feel good if you get past the "icky" imagination. Our "snake" is soft
and fuzzy, but from time to time can be kind of icky. This snake I lifted
from my 2001 Eto.
Nenga-jo for 2002(The
Year of the Horse)
 Harry
Potter became very famous in the theaters this year. We modeled our
greeting on this motif. Personally I think it was our most dynamic
greeting card so far. It has been very hard to beat, but that doesn't mean
we don't try.
Nenga-jo
for 2003
(The Year of the Sheep)
 Didn't
you know that sheep come in all colors of the rainbow? Neither did we,
actually. But they do! And doesn't that grazing sheep look awfully
familiar?
Nenga-jo for 2004
(The
Year of the Monkey)
 This
year is a bit different. We modeled our nenga-jo on one of the eto that my
friends the Yoshida's made for me. You can see more of
The Eto here. (If you fall in love with them as I did, and want to
start your own collection, please let me know.
Nenga-jo for 2005
(The
Year of the Chicken)
 The
year of the chicken was an interesting year. But it is over and I didn't
update this page. So I won't bother adding more.
Nenga-jo for 2006
(The
Year of the Dog)
 Since
this will probably be Tug's last "Year of the Dog" (it only comes around
once every 12 years and he is already 16 years old, we decided to showcase
him in his full splendor. Unfortunately he is now about 5-6kg lighter and
8 years older than this picture. But he sure looks good, even for a 16
year old guy!
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