On the morning of New Year's Day, the family rise early, put on their new clothes and finest jeweler, make offerings of barley flour mixed with butter and sugar at the family shrine, and then go to monasteries after breakfast. Tens of thousands of Tibetans swarm into the Jokhang, Zhaibung and Sera monasteries, and the Potala Palace, all in Lhasa, to worship Buddha. People add roasted highland barley, wheat, and juniper and cedar branches into the incense burners on Barkhor Square. Smoke fills the area.

On the second day of the Tibetan New Year, people begin visiting their relatives and friends. They feast on rich holiday foods, drink highland barley liquor, play mahjong, dice and card games, and sing and dance around huge bonfires at night. The revelry continues from three to five days.

2. Xigaze region

Like their peers in Lhasa, Tibetans in Xigaze Prefecture of the Tibet Autonomous Region launch their Tibet Lunar New Year holiday on December 29th of the Tibetan calendar.

On that afternoon, local Tibetan men wash their hair after cleaning their houses and painting the Eight Auspicious Symbols on the walls. It is said that this will help the men have black and shiny hair and bring good luck to the family. Women cannot wash their hair that afternoon because it is believed it would have the opposite effect.

On New Year's Eve, the same ceremony to drive out evil spirits is carried out in every family. Instead of throwing away the remains of the Guthuk and the burning torch, the men of the family climb onto a hill far from the house and burn a boiled sheep head until black, which will be offered at the family shrine as a sacrifice.

The young men and women get up around dawn on New Year's Day. Dressed in their festive best, some of them climb onto hills to erect new prayer flags for the village.

Prayer flags are square pieces of fabric with prayers printed on them, strung together and hung from a large timber flagpole. Each flutter of a flag in the wind is another recitation of the prayer printed on it, for the benefit of the community.

The others go to streams or wells for "new water."

Then the family will have lunch at which they share a sheep's head, sausages and wheat porridge, and drink highland barley liquor on the first day of the first Tibetan month.

On the second day of the new year, all families gather in their neighborhood squares to burn juniper branches and offer highly alcoholic barley liquor and snacks as sacrifice to the area's deity of the land and protector deities.

Starting on the third day of the New Year, banquets for friends and relatives are held one after another.

3. Amdo region

Amdo region refers to Tibetan areas in Qinghai, southwestern Gansu and northwestern Sichuan provinces. Most of the region is covered with vast grasslands. Tibetans living there are mainly nomads.

For the Amdo Tibetan nomads, the first thing to be done on the morning of the Tibetan New Year is always to climb to the top of a hill near their settlement and try to be the first person to burn juniper branches to worship the local protector deities.

It is a great honor to be the first to burn juniper branches, for he or she has the right to sound the white conch to inform the others living around the hill, and the first smoke can be seen for a great distance. Other people at the top of the hill will then add more juniper and cedar branches to the fire and offer liquor and highland barley flour to the local protector deities.

Different from Lhasa and Xigaze, house cleaning and water drawing are prohibited on New Year's Day in many areas of Amdo region.