Of all the strange New Years traditions I’ve heard of (If my father shoves one more spoonful of Black Eyed Peas down my throat I might crack!) I still think this one is the strangest. The Spanish are superstitious little buggers and if someone tells you to do something for good luck, by god, you do it, no questions asked.
For new years, this includes standing outside the town church at midnight wearing red underwear (under my clothes, thank you very much, tho some people missed that piece of advice) with a cup of 12 SEEDED grapes someone handed you from a shop down the street and trying to eat all of them starting with the first chime and finishing before the last chime is up. Don’t think that sounds hard? Have you ever tried the whole “eat 10 saltine crackers in a minute” trick? This is similar. The grapes are seeded, which means, if you don’t want to crack a tooth, you’re deseeding them. This also is not a minute, but roughly 30 seconds to consume and deseed 12 grapes. It’s not an easy task.
From the grape eating (kool-aid drinking) party, everyone (drunkenly) parades down to the ocean, naturally, to jump over waves. Yes, after consuming 12 grapes, you must (of course) go out into the ocean (many people in their fancy red underwear only) and jump over 8 waves to bring luck for the next year.
So which one works? I don’t know. I did both, just for safe measure.
Cups of grapes for Nochevieja
Red Panties in a Square in Madrid