The First Calligraphy in the New Year is called "Kakizome" or "Kissho-hajime" and it is one of many "firsts," as we have hatsugama (the first tea ceremony), hatsu-ike (the first flower arragement), hatsu-ni (the first cargo), and hatsuyori (the first visit to their music teacher by maiko).
The custom which is usually held on January 2, seems to go back to the Kamakura period (1192-1333). With the spread of literacy in the Edo-period, via the terakoya temple schools, it became a nationwide practice.

Traditionally, kakizome was performed with the first water drawn from the well on New Year's day (wakamizu) - the water was used to rub the ink stick in to make ink. People would be seated in the lucky direction of the year according to the zodiac signs and write poetry containing auspicious expressions as "long life" or "eternal spring."
In modern Japan, kakizome has mainly become a children's activity. Pupils are assigned kakizome as their winter holiday homework. They write auspicious expressions (kibo no haru, "a hopeful spring," hatsu-yume, "first dream," etc.) or New Year resolutions rather than poems. The results, written in bold characters on long rectangular pieces of paper like hanging scrolls, are exhibited together in the school.

Brush and ink were brought from China in the distant past and calligraphy, Shodo, has become an inseparable part of Japanese culture. But due to the use of computer ke...