Like many places, January 1 is holiday in North Korea, following last night’s celebrations to bring in a new year. In case you missed it, here is the Korean Central Television New Year’s Eve broadcast from last night. Hello Kitty makes an appearance.

This morning Korean TV aired the annual New Year’s Address, which gives a general preview of policy direction for the year to come in the economy, national defense, and international relations. Newspapers across the country publish the annual New Year’s Address and over the coming weeks, all North Koreans – man, woman, old, young, as they say – will familiarise themselves with and memorise important parts of the address. Korea Watchers across the world from Seoul and Beijing to Washington and Moscow have already begun to analyse its contents, speculating what it all might mean for 2018.

These few days, as well as at Lunar New Year, there is a tradition of watching the television series Our Warm Home (따뜻한 우리 집), which is a rough equivalent to the UK’s Love Actually. The original Part 1 of Our Warm Home starts on December 1, while Part 2 ends on New Year’s Eve. Parts 3 & 4, made due to the popularity of the originals, revisit the same characters a year later.

And below the requisite North Korean New Year song: 'Snow is Falling on New Year's Day'.

Happy New Year!