Osechi ryori
Osechi ryori is an elaborate, multi-tiered lacquered box of New Year foods, each dish carrying its own symbolic meaning — black soybeans for health, herring roe for fertility and abundance, sweet chestnut and mashed sweet potato for prosperity. Department store depachika food halls sell increasingly elaborate osechi sets in the days leading up to New Year, worth a look even without buying.
Mochi and kagami mochi
Mochi (pounded rice cakes) feature heavily through the New Year period, including kagami mochi — two stacked round mochi topped with a small orange, traditionally displayed in homes and businesses as a decorative offering through early January.
Kadomatsu decorations
Kadomatsu, arrangements of pine and bamboo, appear outside homes, shops and hotel entrances through the New Year period, traditionally meant to welcome ancestral spirits associated with the new year — a decoration worth noticing on any Osaka street in the first days of January.
Otoshidama
Children receive otoshidama, small gifts of money in decorated envelopes, from parents and relatives — a tradition prominent enough that specialty envelope designs fill stationery store shelves throughout December.