Chol Chnam Thmey​​, new year literally in English, is a three-day festival starting on 13 or 14 of April depending on the Leap Year. During the Angkor times, the New Year had been celebrated 4 months earlier on the first day of the first lunar month.

The main reason for the celebration is that April is usually the end of the dry season, when the peasants finish their work in the fields and begin harvest before the start of rainy season.

The first day of Khmer New year is called Mohasangkrana

According to the ancient belief, on that day, the new god or angel is appointed to protect the world for the year ahead. To welcome the arrival of the angel, people clean and decorate houses and themselves, to make sure that the new year does notstart with bad luck or unhappiness,

Each home welcome the new god or angel individually by offering a table full of fruits, cakes together with candles and incense sticks decorated with flower and flashing light chains to ensure that the house and the family are protected for the rest of year.

In the morning, Cambodian Buddhists go to pagoda and offer food to the monks and people build mountain of sand to represent the stupa Valuka Chaitya, and have the monks give them blessing of happiness and peace.

The second day of the New Year is called VorakVanabatt

This means day of giving. Traditionally, on this day one give gift to parents, grand-parents or elderly people,

The Third day of the New Year is called ThngayLeung Sak and means new beginning  

After offering food and seeking the blessing of the monks in the morning, another celebration is held in the afternoon, it is Pithi Srang Preah where Buddhist believers bath the Buddha statues with perfumed water. People also bath their elderly to get good wishes and advices,

The New Year days can be time where young Cambodians are allowed to meet and engage in mixed plays, it is also the opportunity for young men to look for potential brides.

During the festival the pagoda become the place of reunion, meeting, and many traditional games are played, such as Bos Angkunh and Chol Chhoung. The following are the ways that some traditional games are preferable among the festival revelers, especially among countryside young people.  

Bos Angkunh

Bos Angkunh game starts with people, usually young girls and boys forming two teams. The team of boys stands less than 10 meters apart opposite the team of girls. The simple style consists of just throwing the Ongkunhs nuts to hit the target Ongkunhs on the other side. The team that hit all the Angkunhs nuts on the other team, which fails in the game, will start penalty by using the Onkunghsto hit the knees of the losing team.

Chol Chhoung

Chol Chhoung is a game played especially on the first nightfall of the Khmer New Year by two groups of boys and girls. Ten or 20 people stand in two rows opposite each other. One group throws the "chhoung" , which is a scarf knot, to the other group. When it is caught, it will be rapidly thrown back to the first group. If someone is hit by the "chhoung," the whole group must dance to get the "chhoung" back while the other group sings to the dance.