On New Year's Eve in northern China, jiaozi is often served. Northerners often put coins, sugar, peanuts, good dates and chestnuts together with meat stuffing into the jiaozi in the New Year, representing beautiful meanings. On New Year's Eve in the south, people usually eat Yuanxiao and rice cakes. Yuanxiao is also called "Tangyuan", "Tuanzi" and "Yuanzi", with a lot of sugar in the middle, which means a happy and sweet family reunion. The rice cake is made of glutinous rice, which means "high every year" in homophonic.

On New Year's Eve, when having a reunion dinner, there is a fish on every table. The fish "Yu" is homophonic, and there is a "fish" every year-a "Yu" every year, which is auspicious and festive.

Northeasters have a high demand for New Year's dinner, which must include the so-called "four big items", namely, chicken, fish, ribs and elbows. Without any one item, it would not be "Northeast", and braised dishes, braised carp and sauce bones are all necessary dishes for the New Year.

People in Hubei can eat the "Sanquan" banquet very fastidiously. In the New Year's Eve dinner, we usually use "three foods", that is, whole chicken, whole fish and whole duck, as well as "three cakes" fish cake, meat cake, sheep cake, "three pills" fish balls, meatballs and lotus root balls.

Shanghainese's Spring Festival dishes are well-intentioned, and there are quite a few things that must be eaten. In addition to fish, chickens and ducks, spring rolls are also added, which means that "the year is in spring". During the Chinese New Year, every household will prepare eight-treasure rice, many people will make their own eight-treasure rice, and of course some people will buy ready-made rice. As soon as the eight-treasure rice is served, it is "round and integrated", which is an indispensable taste of Shanghai traditional New Year's Eve.