The Doll Festival on March 3rd, also called Momo no Sekku (‘peach festival’), is the day to pray for girls to grow up safe and healthy. Families with daughters cerebrate this day by displaying hina dolls dressed like medieval courtiers, drinking sweet white sake, and eating rainbow-colored hina crackers. The first doll festival for a new baby girl, the hatsu sekku, is an occasion for special celebration. The Doll Festival originates in jōshi no sekku, a seasonal ritual introduced from China. Traditionally, people would transfer the impurities accumulated in their bodies to a doll, and then release the doll, and their impurities, to float away down a river. The modern Doll Festival apparently started when this ceremony of purification was combined with the beautiful hina dolls that medieval court women played with. In some areas, people still conduct a nagashi bina ceremony, in which they transfer their impurities to dolls and send them down a river.