Kadomatsu (門松, かどまつ) is the pine and bamboo arrangement placed in pairs at Japanese doorways for the New Year. The name means gate pine. It works as a yorishiro (依り代), a temporary perch where the incoming year deity can settle, and it stands from late December until the pine period ends in early or mid-January.
The Pair at the Bank Door
Walk through any Japanese business district in the last days of December and you will start seeing them: two green cylinders of cut bamboo, waist high or taller, one on each side of an entrance. Banks. Hotels. The dry cleaner. A car dealership that has otherwise made no concession to the season at all.
The first year I lived in Japan I walked past them for a week before I properly looked at one. Then I stopped in front of a pair outside a small ryokan in Kanazawa. Three bamboo stalks, cut on the diagonal so the hollow interiors showed like open mouths. Pine boughs packed around the base. A skirt of straw wrapped and tied with rope. Somebody had put a single sprig of plum in, and it had not opened yet.
The owner came out and saw me looking. She said the pair would come down on the seventh and be burned. Not thrown away. Burned.
“Western decorations mark that something happened. A kadomatsu marks that somebody is expected.”
What Kadomatsu Is For
The New Year in Japan is not primarily a party. It is a reception. The toshigami (年神), the deity of the incoming year, is understood to visit each household and bring the year’s good fortune with it, and almost every custom of the season is a step in the hosting.
The house is scrubbed for ōsōji so the guest does not arrive into last year’s dust. A shimenawa rope or a shimekazari wreath goes on the door to mark the space as clean. Round mirrored rice cakes, kagami mochi (鏡餅), are stacked on a shelf as an offering. And the kadomatsu goes out at the gate, because a kami needs something to alight on, and pine is the traditional landing place.
That is the whole logic. Everything else about the decoration is detail.
Pine, Bamboo, Plum
Most kadomatsu combine three plants, together called shōchikubai (松竹梅), pine-bamboo-plum. The grouping is old, borrowed from Chinese painting, and each element carries its own reading.
Matsu (松), pine, is the essential one and the one in the name. It is evergreen, it holds its needles through winter, and it can live for centuries. Pine stands for endurance and long life. In Japanese, matsu is also a homophone of the verb to wait, which suits a decoration whose whole job is waiting for a guest.
Take (竹), bamboo, is the visual centrepiece: three stalks of graded height, cut and bound in the middle. Bamboo grows extraordinarily fast and bends in a storm without snapping. It stands for vigour, growth, and resilience.
Ume (梅), plum, is the optional third. Plum blossoms open in the cold, often before the last snow has gone, which makes them the first sign that winter is losing. Ume stands for nobility and for beginnings that arrive early. Not every kadomatsu includes it. The ones that do are usually the more elaborate commercial arrangements.
The Two Bamboo Cuts
Look at the tops of the bamboo and you will see one of two treatments.
Sogi (削ぎ) is the diagonal cut, sliced at an angle so the hollow shows. This is the common modern style and the one most people picture. A popular story links it to Tokugawa Ieyasu and a defeat he vowed to avenge, with the diagonal cut representing the severed head of his rival. It is a good story and it is not securely documented, so enjoy it as folklore rather than history.
Zundo (寸胴) is the flat cut, straight across, leaving a clean rim. It is the older and more formal treatment and you will still see it at shrines, traditional inns, and businesses that want to signal restraint.
When Kadomatsu Go Up
New Year preparation formally begins on December 13, a day called shōgatsu kotohajime (正月事始め), the beginning of New Year matters. Historically this was when households cut pine and cleaned the family altar. In practice almost nobody decorates that early now, and the real window is the week after Christmas.
Two dates are avoided.
December 29 is skipped because the number reads badly. Nine is ku (九), a homophone of 苦, suffering, so the twenty-ninth can be read as double suffering. Some regions turn the same pun around and treat 29 as fuku, fortune, but the cautious majority simply picks another day.
December 31 is worse, and the objection is not numerical but social. Putting decorations up on the last possible evening is called ichiya-kazari (一夜飾り), one-night decoration, and it reads as having left the guest until the last minute. The same phrase turns up as a warning around the ōmisoka housework.
That leaves December 28 as the day most households and businesses choose. Eight is written 八, a shape that widens as it descends, and widening is read as prospering. If the 28th is impossible, the 30th is the fallback.
When They Come Down
The display period is matsu no uchi (松の内), within the pine, and its end date is one of the cleanest east-west splits in the Japanese calendar.
In the Kantō region, including Tokyo, matsu no uchi ends on January 7, the same day as the seven-herb rice porridge nanakusa-gayu. In the Kansai region, including Kyoto and Osaka, it runs to January 15, which is the older nationwide date and the one the Edo period used before Kantō shortened it.
So a Tokyo office takes its kadomatsu in on January 7 and a Kyoto shop leaves the same decoration standing for another week. In the coming season those days fall on Thursday, January 7 and Friday, January 15, 2027.
What Happens to Them After
Kadomatsu are not put in the bin. They are burned, and the burning is a public event.
Dondo-yaki (どんど焼き), known in western Japan as sagichō (左義長), is a communal bonfire held at shrines, in rice fields, and on empty lots, usually around January 15, the day called koshōgatsu (小正月) or little New Year. Households bring their kadomatsu, their shimekazari, spent omamori charms, old daruma dolls, and the sheets of kakizome calligraphy written on January 2. All of it goes on one pile and is lit.
The fire is understood to send the toshigami back with the smoke, which is why disposal has to be an event rather than a chore. Sparks landing on you are taken as good luck for the year. In many places people toast mochi over the embers and eat it on the spot.
If you have no bonfire within reach, most shrines will accept old decorations at a koshinsatsu osamedokoro (古神札納め所), the collection point for last year’s charms, throughout January.
Making a Simple One
Full-sized kadomatsu are expensive and awkward, and plenty of Japanese households now buy a small tabletop version instead. A simple one is genuinely easy to build.
- Cut three bamboo stalks at graded lengths, roughly in a 7:5:3 ratio, which is the traditional proportion. Cut the tops at a 45-degree angle if you want the sogi style.
- Bind the three together with the tallest at the back and the shortest at the front, so all three cut faces are visible from one side.
- Wrap a base. A short length of pipe, a tin, or a bundle of straw works. Set the bamboo inside and pack it firm.
- Skirt it with straw matting and tie it with rope. Traditionally the rope is knotted in an odd number of turns, most often seven, five, and three from top to bottom.
- Pack pine around the base so the greenery hides the join, and add a plum sprig if you have one.
- Make two. Kadomatsu are placed as a pair, one either side of the door, and a single one looks wrong to anyone who knows.
Set them out on December 28. Take them in on the seventh or the fifteenth, depending on which side of the country you feel loyal to. Then find out where the nearest bonfire is.
FAQ
When should kadomatsu be put up and taken down?
Preparations may begin from December 13, but most households decorate on December 28, avoiding December 29 for its unlucky reading and December 31 because last-minute decorating is considered rude. They come down at the end of matsu no uchi: January 7 in the Kantō region around Tokyo and January 15 in Kansai.
What do the three bamboo stalks mean?
The three graded bamboo stalks represent vigorous growth and resilience, since bamboo shoots up quickly and bends without breaking. The height ratio is traditionally 7:5:3, odd numbers being auspicious. The bamboo sits alongside pine for longevity and, in fuller arrangements, plum for early flowering, the trio known as shōchikubai.
Why are kadomatsu placed in pairs?
They flank a gate or entrance on both sides, and the pair is usually described as male and female, with the left and right arrangements slightly different in the more traditional styles. Practically, the pair marks a threshold rather than a spot, framing the doorway the year deity is expected to pass through.
What happens to a kadomatsu after New Year?
It is burned, not discarded. Communities hold bonfires called dondo-yaki or sagichō around January 15, where kadomatsu, shimekazari, old charms, and New Year calligraphy are burned together to send the toshigami back. Shrines also run year-round collection points for old decorations and charms.
Can I make or display a kadomatsu outside Japan?
Yes, and nobody in Japan considers it off limits. It is a folk decoration rather than a restricted religious object. The two things worth respecting are the timing, so it goes up before the year turns and comes down within matsu no uchi, and the disposal, so it is burned or at least composted rather than thrown out with the packaging.
How does kadomatsu differ from shimenawa and kagami mochi?
They are three different jobs in the same welcome. The kadomatsu at the gate gives the deity somewhere to land. The shimenawa rope or shimekazari on the door marks the house as purified. Kagami mochi, the stacked round rice cakes on a shelf indoors, is the offering left for the guest, and it is broken and eaten at kagami biraki on January 11. The full sequence, along with everything else in the season, is mapped out in the guide to Japanese New Year traditions.