The New Year’s Eve in Spain is one of the most special moments throughout the year. It is tradition to dine with family or friends and to eat one grape with each of the last 12 strokes of the gong before midnight, so that the New Year brings you luck. Of course, it is accompanied by a Cava wine’s toast and the desire to start a new year full of hope and good omens.
Let’s go step by step. New Year’s Eve is reserved to enjoy a good dinner in the company of your near ones but, after the chimes, it is usual to go to clubs, bars or similar enclosures to celebrate in style the arrival of the New Year.
It’s normal to know in advance with whom and where you will have dinner that day. As a general rule, the grandparents’ houses are the best places chosen although hotels, event halls and restaurants remain open that night to celebrate the New Year with their clients.
Get ready to enjoy a delicious treat on New Year’s Eve. They’ll make your mouth water with appetizers such as Manchego Cheese and Iberian Ham… and an incredible assortment of seafood, depending on the family’s purchasing power. The main courses are usually shoulder blades of baby lamb, baked red bream or stuffed turkey. And to round things off, desserts are based on trays of nougat, mantecados, marzipan, marzipan, fried roscos, candied fruits…
Talking about fruits, the one that never stays out of the table that night is the strawberry. The traditional dessert of strawberries with cream is one of the most accepted options, although there are other desserts with this healthy and natural ingredient: strawberries with cream yule log, puff pastry tower with strawberries and cream, strawberry and chocolate tartlets, strawberry cake with cream, strawberries with chocolate coating, vanilla jelly with strawberry, chocolate brownie and strawberries, cava strawberries, strawberry mousse… As you can see, cream and chocolate are two complements closely linked to strawberry.
Towards midnight, each attendee at the New Year’s Eve dinner focuses on television to see how the carillon goes down, the quarter strikes are given and, with the last chimes of the year, twelve grapes are eaten. Once the chimes are over and, with your mouth still full of grapes, there’s a cava’s or cider’s toast with great affection, hugs and kisses. The important thing is to be happy, to transmit your love and to hope that the New Year will be even better than the one that just happened.
Another option to wait for the last chimes of the year is to go to the main squares of cities and towns. Needless to say, as occur in other countries, the crowd of people in these areas to welcome the New Year is impressive.
Once the toasts are over it’s time to party, in any place no matter where. The important thing is to meet more friends and start the New Year dancing nonstop. In this type of parties there is usually an open bar, which’ll make it difficult to spoil the mood. Of course, we recommend you to consume alcohol cautiously and to fully enjoy the night.
At dawn, in the early hours of the morning, the tradition forces you to go out and have the classic chocolate and churros breakfast. After warning up with this delicious breakfast it’s time to leave behind the night excesses. Custom leads the Spaniards to say goodbye and rest a few hours… before meeting again with family and friends to enjoy New Year’s meal, but that’s another story 😉 Happy New Year’s Eve and New Year!
