Lucky Bags: A New Year's Day Tradition

More than a hundred years ago, in the late Meiji period, a Tokyo department store came up with the brilliant idea of bagging up their excess merchandise from the previous year and selling those "mystery bags" to customers for deep discounts on New Year's Day.  The idea caught on with other merchants and these days fukubukuro (lucky bag, mystery bag) are more often filled with new products than last year's leftovers.

Fukubukuro come at a variety of different prices. Most bags we eyed today went for $20 or $30 but I also spotted some tempting $100 bags stuffed with yarn at the craft store, all the more tempting because the bags were clear.

We opted to fork over $30 to a pair of charming young clerks manning a table outside the new Tully's coffee shop on Blue Street.  Their fukubukuro was packaged in a nice zippered case rather than the usual paper or plastic bag and the case alone seemed like a pretty good investment.  The cases were available in two colors, pink and grey, and I had my hand on a pink one until the Ancient Mariner suggested a grey one would make a nice "man-purse".

When I remember where I put my camera, I'll snap off a few photos of the case and its contents:  five coupons for free coffee, a 5-pound bag of Guatemalan coffee, six instant drip coffee packets, a Year of the Dragon ceramic mug, and an airtight humidor for storing coffee.

If the Ancient Mariner hadn't been with me, I definitely would have carried home one or two of those yarn fukubukuro too.  I'm counting the hours until he goes back to work.