This is a “how-to” guide for Tibetan New Year, Losar, to help you celebrate the lunar new year as Tibetans do all over the world.

The first day of Losar in 2020 will fall on February 24. By the Tibetan calendar, this will be the first day of the Male Iron Mouse year of 2147.
Losar-related rituals in Tibet and celebrated by Tibetans all over the world are actually divided into two quite distinct parts.
First, we close out the old year and bid goodbye to all its bad aspects and negativities, with activities that center on the eve of the last night of the year, the 29th day – Nyi Shu Gu – of the Tibetan calendar.
Only after that do we turn our attention to welcoming the Losar – the “new year” – and inviting all good, auspicious things into our homes and our lives.
Learn how Tibetans celebrate Losar with these how-to posts, videos and recipes:

Khapse Recipe: How to Make Tibetan Losar Pastries
Lobsang Wangdu teaches you how to make the most common and simple Losar khapse, called nyapsha. With video.

Open your Generous Heart: Create a Losar Shrine
In Tibetan homes the Losar altar serves as a prominent, central symbol of a wish to cultivate a generous heart and to invoke beautiful blessings into the lives of our family, friends and community for the New Year.

Khapse Recipes: Bulug
As part of a series on the traditions of Losar, Tibetan New Year, here is a recipe for bulug, which is a fairly fancy type of the new year pastries collectively called khapse.

Tibetan Butter Sculptures — Tsepdro — for Losar
The making of tsepdro — the kind of Tibetan butter sculpture commonly created at Losar (Tibetan New Year)

Insider’s Guide to Losar Eating Part 1
An introduction to Tibetan New Year food traditions leading up to Losar, including preparing Losar pastries called khapse, the Eve of New Year’s Eve soup called guthuk, and the chemar bo.

Khapse Recipe: How to Make Tibetan Losar Pastries
Lobsang Wangdu teaches you how to make the most common and simple Losar khapse, called nyapsha. With video.

Vegetarian Guthuk RecipeWarm, wonderful, hearty veg version of the recipe for the popular guthuk noodle soup traditionally eaten at the end of the year. For a meat version of the soup, see our thukpa bhatuk recipe.

Changkol: To Start Losar Morning off Right
Try some changkol, as Tibetans do, for the first dish you eat on the first day of Losar, Tibetan New Year :-)

Nyi-shu-Gu Traditions: The Eve of New Year’s Eve
Rituals for purifying your home and body in the closing days of the old year, including the fun guthuk noodle soup, and the lue, the effigy that symbolizes all the negativity we want to be rid of.

Your Insider’s Guide to Losar Eating — Part 2
A peek into a contemporary Tibetan farmer family’s Losar food traditions for the first three days of Losar, like the bringing in of the important first water of the year at 3 a.m.(!) on the first day of Losar.

Dresil Recipe: Easy Tibetan Sweet Rice
Learn an easy, authentic recipe for the Tibetan sweet rice served at Losar and other special occasions.

Tibetan Chang: How to Make Rice Beer
Kelsang shows you, with a video, an authentic, easy recipe for drechang, Tibetan rice beer.

Tsampa: It Doesn’t Get More Tibetan Than This!
An introduction to the most uniquely Tibetan food, tsampa. At Losar, we use tsampa for the chemar bo, for the changkol (khapse and chang dish which we will post about shortly), and to eat on the first day of Losar, in pa.

Butter Tea – Recipe to Make Your Own Tibetan Tea (Po Cha)
Authentic Tibetan tea recipe by Lobsang Wangdu. Tibetans traditionally drink a bunch of po cha during Losar, though that isn’t exactly special, since they drink po cha all the time anyway :-)

Thue: An Original Tibetan Treat
Learn how to make thue, a sweet, cheesy, buttery treat often eaten at Losar and other special occasions.

Momos — Recipe for Tibetan Dumplings
The most well-known and beloved of Tibetan dishes, momos are popular at Losar parties, though traditionally we do not eat them on the first day of Losar, as the closed shape is considered inauspicious for that day.
Very happy to discover this page.
Thank you both for this-your page!!!
Darja
Tashi Delak,
thanks for sharing and it helps me a lot,
Beautiful,breathtaking nothing more to say
Can you update this article with the Losar dates for 2015? Thanks so much!
We updated the Loasr page. Thanks letting us know about the update.
Tashi Delek,
Could you explain why we keep and display dummy Sheep head and Green wheat or maize plant (Luphu)? This question been often asked.
In my understanding it is from Bonpa tradition or nomads offering gratitude for given good crop and livestock and looking forward for better one year ahead.
Please clarify. Thank you.
Hi Yangchen,
We don’t know 100% for sure, but we agree that the Sheep head and Luphu are very likely traditions coming down from nomadic and/or farmers’ and perhaps Bon traditions related to the abundance of crops and herds. If you understand Tibetan, here is a very interesting explanation of the history, in which the speaker says that even the kapse of the derkha represent very old traditions of putting actual sheep’s head and/or bones on the shrine — so the bungu amchoe, for example, which we relate to donkey’s ears, are meant to represent large bones! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEE_hWQ9Igk
WOW! What beautiful altar! I sincerely rejoice, thank you for sharing . M
Thank you, Martine :-) All our best to you!