In Spain's New Year's Eve tradition, people eat twelve grapes with the twelve midnight clock strikes.
Known as las doce uvas de la suerte, or “the twelve grapes of luck,” the custom is meant to bring prosperity and good fortune for each month of the coming year. Participants try to eat one grape at each strike, making the countdown both festive and surprisingly challenging.
The tradition became strongly associated with Madrid's Puerta del Sol, where the clock of the Real Casa de Correos provides the nationally televised chimes. Spanish households often follow the broadcast while preparing grapes in advance, sometimes peeled or seeded for easier eating.
A popular story says grape growers promoted the custom after a surplus harvest in the early twentieth century, but references to the practice appear before the best-known 1909 surplus story. The number is twelve because it represents the twelve months, not the number of clock strikes in every local countdown.