Ehomairi (visit to a shrine or a temple in the lucky direction) (恵方詣り)
Ehomairi is one of the events of the New Year from ancient times. Ehomairi (恵方詣り) is also written as 恵方参り.
Ehomairi means visiting a temple or a shrine in eho (lucky direction) of that year on January 1 and praying for happiness of that year. Eho changes every year. This is now out of fashion.
It is also possible to do ehomairi to the same shrine every year. The method is to go not to the intended shrine directly but once to the point where the shrine comes in the eho direction, and then to visit the shrine from there to pray. This is easy katatagae (to stay the night in a place situated at another point of the compass when one's destination from home lies in an ill-starred direction). It is also said that you can visit the same ujigami (a guardian god or spirit of a particular place in the Shinto religion) every year by doing this.