Eating 12 Grapes Under a Table On New Year's Eve

About

Eating 12 Grapes Under a Table On New Year's Eve is a TikTok trend based on the Spanish New Year's Eve tradition of "las doce uvas de la suerte," or "the twelve grapes of luck," which claims that eating 12 grapes on New Year's Eve grants you a year of good luck. The TikTok trend, which has been growing on the app since as early as 2022, claims you must eat the grapes under a table and that it will specifically grant participants luck in love, whereas the original tradition does not include the table stipulation and grants general luck. In late 2024 and early 2025, the turning of the tradition into a TikTok trend garnered some controversy on social media.

Origin

The origins of the Twelve Grapes tradition aren't totally clear. The tradition is believed to have been practiced since as early as 1895, as suggested by an archived newspaper clipping.^[1][2] The tradition is thought to be a copycat of the French tradition of drinking champagne and eating grapes on New Year's Eve. It was purportedly started by the Madrid bourgeoisie and widely popularized in the early 1900s, possibly by Alicantese grape farmers to sell more grapes after a good harvest. In the tradition, each grape represents one month of the new year.

On December 22nd, 2022, TikToker^[3] @helengmorales posted a video in which she shows herself eating grapes under a table, then photos from her engagement, captioning the video, "Last year on New Year's Eve, I ate my grapes underneath the table," garnering over 10 million views in just over two years. It is unclear where the "under the table" part of the tradition originated, as it is not part of the original Spanish tradition.

Spread

People continued to upload videos to TikTok about eating 12 grapes under the table on New Year's Eve over the following years. On September 15th, 2024, TikToker^[4] @luvleii posted a video about eating grapes under the table in 2023 and finding love, garnering over 10.1 million views in four months.

On December 23rd, 2024, TikToker^[5] @annadstoddard posted a similar video about finding love after eating the 12 grapes, garnering over 1.1 million views in roughly a week.

In January 2025, some X users shared their frustrations over the 12 grapes tradition becoming a trend on TikTok. For example, on January 1st, 2025, X^[6] user @txrstegenx posted, "babes eating 12 grapes at midnight is a tradition in spain not some weird tiktok trend 😭😭😭," garnering over 18,000 likes in a day.

On the same day, X^[7] user @divinecures posted, "eating grapes just to get man? a man? A MAN? MAN????" garnering over 153,000 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References