Seasonal Japanese Sweets (Winter)

There are many Japanese sweets made in the image of seasons, because Japan has four seasons and the Japanese are sensitive to the change of them.
In the winter Japanese sweets, snow is often used as a motif. Those sweets are white like snow. For example, yuki-mochi, yuki-botan, yuki-tsubaki, yuki-usagi and so on. Yuki is snow in Japanese. By the way, winter is also the coldest season of the year, so there are hot sweets too; kuzuyu (arrowroot gruel), oshiruko (sweet red-bean soup), zenzai (rice cake with red-bean paste) and so on.

Yuki (snow)

(http://woman.excite.co.jp/blog/kawaii/sid_897425/)

And there are many Japanese sweets related to the traditional events in winter (December, January and February). Especially, many events are concentrated in New Year season. The events and its sweets are follows.

*January*

<New Year's Holidays>
The new year's day is called "gantan" in Japanese. On this day, the Japanese eat special food which are made as a lucky charm for the perfect health over the year and the prosperity of descendants. And "osechi" is the nest of boxes which contains  those lucky food, and have been loved for a long time. By the way, these days, there is the osechi which contains many Japanese sweets. It is very colorful and gaining popularity. Of course, there are some sweets regarded as lucky charm too. For example, hanabira-mochi (flower petal rice cake) is the most famous in Kyoto. It is eaten at the imperial court and the Shinto shrines since long ago. Eating it is originally the function which is practiced in new year's holiday. This is to pray for a long life by eating it (hard food) and making the teeth stronger.

(http://shop.gnavi.co.jp/bishokucircle/shzn-wagashi2011)

*February*


<setsubun>
Setsubun was originally the day before the beginning of seasons, that is, the day before the first day of spring(rissyun), summer(rikka), autumn(rissyu) or winter(ritto), and means the time of seasonal change. But after the Edo period, setsubun is mainly the day before the first day of spring in particular. And it cames to the festival on February 3. They has believed that orges appear at setsubun, so tried to warding them off. In the setsubun festival, they practice exorcism and avoidance of bad orges by the special way. It is called "mamemaki"(the bean-scattering). They throw roasted soybeans, huku-mame (fortune beans), either out the door or at the person who plays a role of the orges while the people say "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi! " (Orges out! Luck in!). Many sweets related to the setsubun festival are used huku-mame as their ingredients or motif.

(http://www.mametomi.co.jp/sub3.html)