In Spain's New Year's Eve tradition, people eat twelve grapes at midnight for good luck.
Known as las doce uvas de la suerte, or “the twelve grapes of luck,” the custom calls for eating one grape with each stroke of the midnight clock. The twelve grapes represent the twelve months of the coming year, and successfully eating them is associated with prosperity or good fortune.
The practice became especially famous through televised chimes from Madrid's Puerta del Sol. Families and friends often prepare the grapes in advance because keeping pace with twelve successive clock strikes can be surprisingly difficult.
A popular origin story links the custom to grape growers who promoted it after a surplus harvest in the early twentieth century. Historians also note evidence that Madrid's urban population was already adopting the practice around that period, so the commercial explanation is not the whole story.