The Chinese New Year is popularly known as the Spring Festival. It is the most important, joyous and longest festival in China. Before the eve of the New Year, everyone tries to come back home from every corner of the country to join the entire family, just like Americans' practice for Christmas, to greet the New Year. A New Year big dinner is served, and the most important food is dumplings:
Firecrackers also necessary :
After dinner, a new tablecloth was put on the dining table. New dishes and new chopsticks were brought out. The beds were made up with new sheets, new pillow cases and blanket covers. The sweetmeat and melon seed dishes were filled. Fragrant Chinese narcissus plants with only fresh blossoms and buds were purchased from vendors. The living room and altar were decorated with pomelos, oranges, tangerines, New Year puddings and blooming narcissus plants.
At midnight following a nice family banquet on the New Year's Eve, the young members of the family would bow and pay their respects to the parents and elders.
In the morning, people put on their new clothes and shoes. Men, with their wives, call on relatives and friends to wish them a "Happy and Prosperous New Year " . The caller is served tea with sweet-meats; melon seeds, both red and black; and fruits and delicacies such as puffed rice cakes, dump-lings and deep-fried round doughnuts.