Happy Tanabata! Today is July 7, which is the holiday Tanabata, or Star Festival, in Japan. It is a holiday celebrating the old Chinese legend of the cowherd and the weaver girl. In Japan, people celebrate with summer street festivals and by hanging paper decorations onto bamboo trees. Outside of Japan, Tanabata festivals can be hard to come by. Keep reading to see how Japanese families, including my own, celebrate Tanabata in America and the UK!

What is the Story of Tanabata?

Tanabata is a Japanese holiday that falls every year on July 7. It is based off the Chinese festival celebrating the legend of the cowherd and the weaver girl. This is a story of star crossed lovers. Literally. The cowherd is the star Altair and the weaver girl is the star Vega. In Japanese, their names are Hikoboshi and Orihime. In the legend, Orihime was a princess who was very skilled at weaving. One day she met Hikoboshi, and they fell in love. However, because she was so happy in love (so the legend goes, okay, don’t @ me about anti-feminist themes), she stopped weaving. Her father, the king, was upset so she separated the two lovers on either side of the Milky Way. Orihime was so grieved that her father allowed the two to meet for one day a year, with birds creating a bridge across the Milky Way. That day is the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar year. Obviously July 7 isn’t always the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, but it suer is easy to remember.

Tanabata Children’s Book

I remember when I was a kid, I had a picture book about the Chinese version of this story. That book must be out of print now, because despite all my searching I couldn’t find it! My friend Momo, however, recently found this book on Amazon that she really loved. I haven’t read it myself yet, but if you’re interested in teaching your kids about Tanabata at home, you can give it a try.

Recently, I subscribed to a Japanese children’s book monthly delivery called Stay Native. You can choose books based on age, and the books tend to be themed to the seasons of the year. For July, we got a Tanabata themed book that I really loved! It’s called Orihime-sensei. Unfortunately, it’s only in hiragana, so you need to be able to read Japanese to enjoy it, and it doesn’t seem to be sold on Amazon US. I did find it on Rakuten. In general, I highly recommend Stay Native, though, for Japanese cultural education (if you can read Japanese). I’m not affiliated with them, so I’m leaving the link here just because I love them.

This is a Tanabata dish called Tanabata Somen (recipe coming soon). You can see the Orihime book in the background.

How to Make Tanabata Decorations

While we don’t have Tanabata street festivals where I live, we do have paper! To decorate for tanabata, people often create colorful paper crafts to hang on a bamboo tree. I don’t have a bamboo tree, but I do have a very sad looking parlor palm that got burned by being too close to the window. I think parlor palms are pretty closely related to bamboo trees so… good enough.

If you don’t have a live plant, you could also make your own out of origami! Or just cut out green pieces of construction paper.

There are various symbolic paper crafts that you can hang on your trees. I actually don’t do most of them, but you can learn more about it here. One paper decoration that’s super common is tanzaku. These are colorful strips of paper where you write your wishes. You can wish for good health, luck on school exams, etc. My daughter’s wish was “Oryouri wo tsukuritai” – I want to cook. *shrug*

My daughter made her paper craft at Japanese school. You can see the little Orihime and Hikoboshi is just made from origami paper. So cute!

It’s also common to hang paper stars, which is easy to do.

Tanabata Food

Because Tanabata is a summer festival holiday in Japan, it’s common to eat festival street foods! It can be really hard to recreate the street food atmosphere in your kitchen. One easy food to make is yakisoba. We eat it year round, honestly, and it’s SUPER EASY. Just buy a refrigerated packet from your local Japanese market. Here’s a video of me making it.

Another common Japanese festival food is okonomiyaki. I have a recipe for mini okonomiyaki here that doesn’t even require special Japanese ingredients. You can also take a look at my reel for extra help.

If you’re feeling something cold and fresh, why not try some chirashizushi? My friend Miki from Hanabee Wraps made this gorgeous star themed chirashi bowl. FOOD GOALS.

Learn More About Asian Holidays

Do you have a Tanabata tradition that I missed? Let me know in the comments below or come find me on Instagram! Don’t forget to bookmark and pin this post to remember for next year!

If you enjoyed learning about Tanabata, you might be interested in checking out my posts on other holidays like Hinamatsuri or Lunar New Year.