In Spain, people traditionally eat twelve grapes at midnight on New Year's Eve.
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 finishing them in time is associated with good fortune.
The tradition became especially widespread in the early twentieth century. One often-cited explanation links its popularity to a large grape surplus in 1909, when growers promoted the custom as a way to sell more fruit. However, references to eating grapes at New Year already appeared before that campaign, so the surplus helped popularize rather than necessarily invent the practice.
Televised clock chimes from Madrid's Puerta del Sol make the ritual familiar across Spain. The grapes are eaten after the preliminary warning chimes, not during them.