New Year's Day is not a traditional Chinese festival. It is a legal holiday in our country, so we have a holiday on New Year's Day. In modern China, "New Year's Day" refers to the Gregorian New Year, i.e., January 1st of the Gregorian calendar. Traditional Chinese festivals are related to the lunar calendar (including solar terms), so it definitely is not a traditional Chinese festival; it is just a Gregorian calendar festival. Ask an older farmer, and he will say that at that time in China, there was only the lunar calendar we call, and there was no Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian calendar came from the West.
Traditional Chinese festivals include New Year's Eve (the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month), the Spring Festival (the first day of the first lunar month), the Lantern Festival (the fifteenth day of the first lunar month), Qingming (April 5th), the Dragon Boat Festival (the fifth day of the fifth lunar month), Qixi Festival (the seventh day of the seventh lunar month), the Mid-Autumn Festival (the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month), the Double Ninth Festival (the ninth day of the ninth lunar month), and the Laba Festival (the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month), among others.
In ancient China, the New Year's Day, which is now called "Spring Festival" in modern China, had customs. In modern China, the government has included New Year's Day as a legal holiday, making it a national holiday for all the people. It is a one-day holiday, and often the days before or after are adjusted with the weekend, usually resulting in a three-day holiday. The celebration of New Year's Day in modern China is much less important than that of the Spring Festival. Generally, government agencies and enterprises hold collective celebration activities at the end of the year, but there are few folk activities.

Dumplings are not only food eaten after the sacrificial rituals on New Year's Day. Some cities in northern China also eat dumplings on New Year's Day, emphasizing the custom of wrapping them during the watchful hour and eating them during the farewell hour, that is, eating them at the midnight hour, which marks the transition between two years, a moment of welcoming the new and bidding farewell to the old, and has special significance. It represents the meaning of "changing the year and exchanging the child", where "child" refers to "midnight", and the word "exchange" is a homophone for "dumpling", symbolizing joyous reunion and good fortune, indicating that good luck will be encountered in the new year.
When making dumplings, people often include gold如意, sugar, peanuts, dates, and chestnuts in the filling. Those who eat如意 will have a more sweet life next year; those who eat sugar will have a sweeter life; those who eat peanuts will be healthy and long-lived; and those who eat dates and chestnuts will have children early.
Some local families also prepare side dishes to express good luck when eating dumplings. For example, eating tofu symbolizes happiness for the whole family; eating persimmon cakes symbolizes everything going smoothly; eating three fresh vegetables symbolizes the beginning of a prosperous era. People in Taiwan eat fish balls, meat balls, and hair vegetable, symbolizing reunion and wealth.