Today is a day of fasting and abstinence in preparation for Lent (mainly for Catholics). Traditionally, this is done on Ash Wednesday (which happens to be tomorrow), but because tomorrow is the eve of Chinese New Year (CNY), the church has set the fasting day one day before so that everyone can celebrate CNY eve without having to worry about the ingestion of food.
Traditionally too, for the eve of CNY, people will go home to their families from wherever they are (be it overseas or locally) to have reunion dinner. It is very much like Thanksgiving. It used to be that families will cook up a feast at home. There will be fish (in my family, it is usually steamed), chicken, a dish of mushrooms with fatt choy (some vegetable that literally looks like hair) and lettuce wtih oyster sauce (coz the Chinese word for lettuce is "sheng cai" and represents growth, be it wealth or in terms of children).
In recent years though, people have switched the location to restaurants and such so that they do not need the hassle of preparing and cleaning up afterwards.To me though, the meaning of it all is not lost as everyone still comes together to catch up on lost times.
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