Japanese New Year's food

Japanese New Year's food is called osechi-ryori, and consists many different kinds of dishes. It's a Japanese tradition to eat osechi-ryori throughout the New Year's holidays (until Jan. 3.) Traditionally, people finish cooking osechi dishes by New Year's Eve so they have food for a couple days without cooking. Most of the dishes can last a few days in the refrigerator or at cool room temperature. Colorful osechi-ryori dishes are packed in layers of lacquer boxes, called jubago.
Each dish and type of food in osechi has meaning, such as good health, fertility, good harvest, happiness, long life, and so on. Nowadays, many people in Japan buy osechi at stores instead of cooking them at home since it can be time-consuming to cook so many kinds of dishes.

If you are in Japan, you can order a set of osechi-ryori at department stores, grocery stores, or convenience stores. The kinds of osechi dishes eaten at Japanese homes vary from region to region.
I will introduce common osechi dishes below with some recipes for those of you who might want to cook them.