In Spain, people traditionally eat grapes at midnight on New Year's Eve, taking one grape for each clock chime.
The custom is known as las doce uvas de la suerte, or “the twelve grapes of luck.” The twelve grapes correspond to the twelve months of the coming year. Completing the sequence is popularly associated with good fortune and prosperity.
Many people follow the chimes broadcast from Madrid's Puerta del Sol, whose clock is one of Spain's most famous New Year's symbols. Television coverage has helped spread the ritual throughout the country and among Spanish-speaking communities elsewhere.
The practice is often linked to a surplus grape harvest in the early twentieth century, when growers promoted grapes as a festive New Year's product. Whether or not that account explains the entire tradition, the twelve-grape ritual is now firmly established in Spanish celebrations.