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How-to Guide for Losar — Tibetan New Year [Updated for 2020]

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.

Losar Shrine with chemar bo, butter sculptures and sheep's head image at the Gyuto Foundation Center in Richmond, California.
Losar Shrine with chemar bo, butter sculptures and sheep’s head image at the Gyuto Foundation Center in Richmond, California.

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: Bulug

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.

Sculptures Tsepdro

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

Losar Shrine

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 for Losar morning.

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 :-)

Leading the evil spirits outside with fire after eating guthuk. Photo © YoWangdu.

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.

Shamdrey

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.

Drechang – Tibetan rice beer. Photo © yowangdu.com.

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

Tsampa

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.

Tibetan butter tea

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: Tsampa, Butter, Cheese, Sugar

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.

Post date: January 4, 2013 | By: yowangdu | Lasted update: January 19, 2020

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Les amis de Sherpagaun says

    October 7, 2017 at 12:50 am

    Very happy to discover this page.

  2. darja says

    February 6, 2017 at 2:13 am

    Thank you both for this-your page!!!
    Darja

  3. dhondup Shola says

    January 21, 2015 at 2:45 am

    Tashi Delak,
    thanks for sharing and it helps me a lot,

  4. Justin downs says

    January 3, 2015 at 7:41 pm

    Beautiful,breathtaking nothing more to say

  5. Laura says

    January 1, 2015 at 9:40 am

    Can you update this article with the Losar dates for 2015? Thanks so much!

    • yowangdu says

      January 4, 2015 at 9:04 pm

      We updated the Loasr page. Thanks letting us know about the update.

  6. Yangchen says

    March 3, 2014 at 8:49 pm

    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.

    • yowangdu says

      March 4, 2014 at 9:07 am

      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

  7. Martine says

    March 15, 2013 at 3:47 am

    WOW! What beautiful altar! I sincerely rejoice, thank you for sharing . M

    • yowangdu says

      March 15, 2013 at 7:21 am

      Thank you, Martine :-) All our best to you!

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