March 3rd was the Hina Festival or The Doll’s Festival. The Hina Festival is a day to celebrate the health and happiness of children. This is shown not only through pretty decorative dolls that are put on display in households, but also through beautiful and delicious food such as hishimochi, chirashizushi, and ushiojiru.

This past week, the children in the Chibi no Bi class created lovely clay recreations of the prince and princess dolls that are displayed during the Hina Festival and one of the children drew a cute pair of lampstands (bonbori) :

The colors of the Hina Festival are white – for purification, green – for health, and pink – for keeping misfortune and bad spirits away. They are also colors often associated with plum blossoms, cherry blossoms, and spring. The Hina Festival marks the nearness of spring and here at Cena the children showed off their individual personalities as well as their own anticipation for spring with their own toy flower gardens:

Here’s to hoping that all the students at Cena have a happy and healthy Hina Festival and year!