Members of a family are supposed to stay up as late as they can at the New Year's eve. Long ago, it was believed that gods in Heaven would spread gold over to each family so they kept awake, active and ready to seize it with door closed.

The new year's eve is also the best time for the members of a family to talk with each other, report about their experiences and achievements, and exchange their ideas and plans for the next year.

For most of the northerners in China, making Chinese dumplings is a must at the new year's eve. As you know, making dumplings for a large family needs more than one person to fulfil. So it is also the time for the family members to chat around the table throughout the cooperation on the job. And the talk can often go back to their past when they were very young. I usually spend the Festival in my hometown with my parents. I can see the delighted faces of my parents when we sit down to work at the dumplings. The scene often brings my mother back to the old days we had together and she treasures those days very much though we were not so well-off as today. I still have a vivid picture of how our brothers and sisters in our childhood played joyfully in the new year's eve.

If the new year's eve is the time for families of the year, the new year eve's dinner will certainly be the hour of the new year's eve. The dinner is full of symbolic meaning, such as Chinese dumplings implying wealth since they have the shape of ancient Chinese gold or silver ingots. Everyone, even kids, drinks a little Jiu (usually hard liquor), which symbolizes longevity since Jiu has the same pronunciation as longevity in Chinese.