Time for the Hina dolls

Hina Dolls are a traditional Japanese doll set representing the imperial court of the Heian period. They are for the "Hinamatsuri", Hina Dolls Festival, also known as Girls' Day. They are a wish for protection, health and happiness for girls.

When a girl is born into a family, they often receive a Hina Doll set from grandparents. There was a time when people would buy a three (plus) tier set with several key figures from the imperial court. But nowadays, due to several factors including limited space and time constraints, often people just buy an Emperor and Empress in a case. We have the latter and it is so much easier than a whole set that needs to be set up each year. Moreover, it saves on storage space.

For most of the year the dolls are in the storage. They only come out of storage as we near Girls' Day, which is March 3rd. For years, I didn't know when to take the display out and even had years, when I only thought of it the day before Girls' Day! So now I do what many other families in Japan do - use Risshun (which was yesterday) as a marker and display the dolls from a couple of days after Risshun.