People traditionally eat grapes at midnight on New Year’s Eve in Spain for luck in the coming year.
The practice is the twelve-grape tradition: celebrants eat one grape with each of the 12 clock chimes marking midnight. Completing the sequence is popularly said to bring good fortune across the 12 months ahead.
Madrid’s Puerta del Sol is the symbolic center of the national countdown. Its clock is televised throughout Spain, and many households prepare small dishes or tins containing exactly 12 grapes so everyone can follow the rhythm.
The custom is sometimes explained as a response to a grape surplus in the early 1900s, while other accounts point to earlier elite or urban traditions. Regardless of its precise origin, the ritual is now one of Spain’s most recognizable New Year customs.