New Year’s Eve in Spain: Grapes, Fireworks, and Red Underwear
Despite living here for years, I’ve never actually spent New Year’s Eve in Spain. I’m usually traveling somewhere to visit family or friends for the holidays.
In Singapore, we celebrated with fireworks and food — in my family, that meant mountains of chili crab. In Tucson, we serenaded the New Year around a desert bonfire, toasting with a shot of mezcal. In Berlin, it’s a fireworks free-for-all — explosive, frenzied mayhem that rivals even Fallas.
But Spain? When it came to how the country rings in the New Year, I only knew that it involved swallowing a lot of grapes.
This year, I’ve done my homework. I’m now officially ready to celebrate Nochevieja, grapes and all.
Celebrating New Year’s Eve in Valencia
If you’re celebrating in Valencia, the city’s official events are centered around two main locations:
Plaza del Ayuntamiento
This is the traditional spot for the countdown (las campanadas). The plaza will be closed from 8:30 pm, reopening at 10:00 pm, when people are allowed in to claim their spots. Expect large crowds, live DJ sets, fireworks, and the big countdown at midnight, with festivities continuing until around 1:45 am.
Earlier in the day, there’s also a special children’s celebration at the plaza, running from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm, with noon standing in for the midnight countdown — grapes included.
City of Arts and Sciences
At the stroke of midnight, fireworks will launch from the Monteolivete Bridge, using more than 1,000 kilos of gunpowder to create an intense, nine-minute pyrotechnic display.
More official details on Valencia’s New Year’s celebrations are available via the city council.
New Year’s Traditions in Spain
At midnight, families and friends gather in town squares or around their televisions to watch las campanadas — the chimes that mark the official countdown to the New Year.
The country’s most famous celebration takes place at Puerta del Sol in Madrid, considered Kilómetro Cero: the symbolic center of the capital, and the point from which distances across Spain are officially measured.
When the clock strikes twelve, one grape is eaten with each chime. Whether you’re among the thousands packed into Puerta del Sol or watching from your living room, the ritual is the same: 12 grapes for 12 months of good luck.
The 12 Lucky Grapes
Why grapes? The origins of the tradition are debated.
One theory suggests that it began as a form of satire, mocking the wealthy, who would welcome the New Year with sparkling wine and grapes. Another traces it to 1909, when a bumper grape harvest led farmers to sell grapes cheaply — or give them away — making them accessible to everyone.
Whatever the origin, today the grapes are everywhere. Supermarkets sell them fresh or canned, often peeled and deseeded, and street kiosks pop up across the city in the final hours before midnight.
Spanish celebrity psychic Rappel told Telecinco that if you really want to lock in your luck, you should light a white candle next to your bowl of grapes, surround it with walnuts and bay leaves, write down three wishes on white paper, step on the paper with your left foot while eating the grapes, then burn the paper in the candle.
Simple, right?
Red Underwear for Luck in Love
If you’re hoping for luck in love, Spain has a solution: red underwear.
The tradition exists in Italy and France as well and may date back to medieval times. Red was once associated with witchcraft and bad fortune, but also with fertility and renewal. The theory is that women, in particular, began secretly wearing red garments to attract love and prosperity.
Today, the tradition is far less secret. In the days leading up to New Year’s Eve, bazaars and shops fill their seasonal sections with red boxers, briefs, and bras. Some say the underwear must be gifted, not bought for yourself, and worn on New Year’s Eve to seal your romantic fortune for the year ahead.
Toasting with Gold
In Spain, the New Year’s toast is made with cava, not champagne.
For extra luck in marriage and wealth, Rappel also recommends dropping a gold ring or coin into your glass before the toast. Drink the cava without removing the gold, and your good fortune is said to last all year.
What Will Cristina Pedroche Wear?
One uniquely Spanish New Year’s tradition unfolds just minutes before midnight, when viewers tune in to see what Cristina Pedroche will wear during las campanadas.
The Telecinco presenter — and wife of celebrity chef Dabiz Muñoz — has become famous for her extravagant, often barely-there New Year’s Eve outfits. Over the years, she’s worn everything from a dress spun from sugar to a design partially constructed from crystallized breast milk. She described it as an homage to motherhood and maternal health, as reported by Vogue España.
Adding to the fun, Muñoz traditionally poses for photos wearing his wife’s dress a few days into the New Year. This year, he told El País that the outfit is so elaborate he’s not even sure Pedroche will be able to wear it — much less himself.
Pedroche has promised to be “super bold” and “even more Pedroche,” while also hinting that this may be her last year hosting the countdown. With such devoted fans, it’s hard to imagine a Spanish New Year’s Eve without her fantastical fashion reveal.
However you choose to celebrate — grapes, cava, fireworks, red underwear, or all of the above — I wish you a happy and healthy start to 2026.
Feliz Año Nuevo!
Author: Atika
Writer and journalist based in Valencia. She mixes hard news with creative storytelling and a dash of local curiosity. You might spot her biking through the city, chasing stories — or just a good cortado.