January 2 - Nen Matsu Jumbo Takara Kuji

"And what will you do with your share?"
Momoko chewed her lower lip and concentrated. Every year she had only one chance to get this right, and if she blew it she would have to live with it until next New Year's Eve. Finally she had her answer.
"A puppy hotel!" She blurted it out like the idea wouldn't stay in her head any longer. And from the roars of approving laughter from her mom and dad and big sister and big brother she knew she'd made the right decision, and so she told them all about it.
"It'll have a restaurant where dogs can eat dog food and people food. There'll be a swimming pool and a park with dog sleds and dog rides. And all the dogs can bring their favorite toys. And there'll be a beauty shop where the dogs can get a new haircut and--"
Her dad cut in. "What's the name of your puppy hotel going to be?"
"Princess Momoko's Puppy Academy!"
Nobody there--not Tomo Suzuki or his wife Ayako; not their 15-year-old daughter Junko or their 13-year-old son Taka--would tell Momoko that Princess Momoko's Puppy Academy would be a name better suited for an obedience school. It would have gone against the spirit of their annual New Year's Eve tradition when they bought one ticket for the Nen Matsu Jumbo Takara Kuji--the biggest lottery in Japan--and shared their fantasies about what each of them would do if they won (This year's answers: Tomo would build his own golf course. Ayako would renovate the kitchen. Junko and Taka rolled their eyes at mom's lack of imagination, but Junko didn't do much better. She couldn't decide between clothes and a trip to Disney World (her father encouraged her to get both and that settled it). Taka, like last year and the year before, went with a swimming pool.).
They'd been doing it since Momoko was born and it was the one part of New Year's that everyone still rallied around, even as Junko and Taka entered their headstrong teenage years. For those brief moments around the kotatsu, the Suzukis were like a family from a board game commercial: delighted to be in each other's company, nowhere else they'd rather be.
The thing is, they never checked to see if they won. They just assumed they didn't. The fun part was sharing their daydreams. A couple hundred yen was a small price to pay for that.
But the following year, as Ayako was making room in the scrapbook for that year's entry, curiosity got the better of her and she decided to look up the winning numbers from last year.
She logged on to the lottery's website and checked the archives and then looked at the ticket that was glued in the family's scrapbook.
Obviously something was wrong so she checked the numbers again.
And then again.
And again.
All the oxygen was sucked out of the room and she grew dizzy as she reread the computer screen yet again. With trembling fingers, she clutched the scrapbook and checked the numbers again five times and reread the lottery rules seven times and it still didn't seem imagineable, much less possible, and far less true, and so she brought her news to Tomo and the kids. Maybe they could make sense of it.
They had won.
Not only last year but the seven previous years as well--every year that they'd played. However, in each case, the deadlines for claiming the prize had long since passed and their winning tickets were worthless.
Denial and disbelief came first.
Then panic and then bargaining.
Then nausea.
Then silent, shocked acceptance.
And then gradually, but with increasing intensity, came blame and accusations and scorn and venom. It was Tomo's fault. It was Ayako's fault. It was Taka's, Junko's, and Momoko's fault. The details are unimportant. Everyone blamed everyone and it was personal and it was nasty. Things were said that could never be taken back and it wasn't long before the attacks expanded beyond those related to the lottery: Tomo never got promoted because he was worthless and incompetent. Ayako's cooking wasn't fit to be served to prison inmates. Taka and Junko were stupid. Momoko was immature. And on and on, and it all happened so fast, within minutes.
New Year's Eve was ruined.
They had dinner together but they didn't talk much, and certainly not about puppy hotels or golf courses or swimming pools. They were too focused on how stupid everyone was to have blown it in previous years.
Shortly after dinner, they gathered around the TV as the winning numbers were announced.
They lost.
In fact, for the first time since they started playing, they failed to get a single number. Silently, they went to bed.
After New Year's, things gradually returned to normal in the Suzuki household. Tomo went back to work, the kids went to school. Apologies were made and they were (more or less) sincere and (generally) accepted.
The next year and each subsequent year, New Year's Eve dinners became more civil, though the tradition of sharing their lottery winnings fantasies never came back. Like before, every year they still bought one ticket, but they never won again.