Tibetan New Year

Tibetan New Year is the most important festival there. On that day, Tibetan families will get together and pray for a better year. The traditional Tibetan New Year is known as Losar, which starts from the first to the third day of the first Tibetan month.

Preparations for the happy event are manifested by special offerings to family shrine deities, painted doors with religious symbols, and other painstaking jobs. People eat Guthuk (barley crumb food with filling) on New Year's Eve with their families. As a convention, there will be a Guthuk stuffed with a different filling to fool someone in the family.

After dinner, they will watch the Festival of Banishing Evil Spirits. When we see the lit torches, people running and yelling to get rid of evil spirits from their houses, we know that the New Year comes.

On the first day of the New Year, housewives will get up very early and prepare the first buckets of water and breakfast before the dawn. After breakfast, people dress up to go to monasteries and offer their prayers. People visit their neighborhoods and exchange their Tashi Delek blessings on the first two days. Feast is the theme during the two days. On the third day, old prayer flags are replaced with new ones. Other folk activities may be held in some areas to celebrate the events.