How is New Year's Day celebrated in Spain?

For the Spaniards, the New Year is a joyful and very noisy holiday with its own characteristics, dishes and traditions. Curious about how the New Year is celebrated in Spain?

On this festive night in Spain, it is customary to go out and join the fun. Small and large streets, central squares of cities become the epicenter of folk festivities. At the moment when the hands of the clock announce that the New Year has come, people become closer to each other - everyone is happy, congratulating each other, exchanging symbolic gifts and hugging.

New Year's celebration in Spanish is celebrated on a grand scale. Everywhere music sounds, songs, people dance, watch fireworks, fire shows, shower each other with confetti rain. The Spanish celebrations are always bright, large-scale and fun. Temperamental Spain will not leave anyone indifferent, surprising with its festive customs and unrestrained fun.

New Year in Spain is traditionally celebrated at night on December 31st. This holiday takes place during the Christmas holidays, falling right in the middle of them. The Yule Christmas period for Catholics, which include the Spaniards, falls on the dates from December 25 to January 6. These days in Spain, as well as throughout Europe, there are long weekends that people devote to their relatives and friends, spend holidays with them, and during this period of time they celebrate Christmas, and then the New Year.

The Spanish New Year is a kind of continuation of the Christmas celebration, but stretched out in time. The difference between the holidays is that it is customary for the Spaniards to celebrate Christmas at home, and the New Year is traditionally celebrated in a noisy, merry company outside the hearth.

Compared to Christmas, New Year's festivities are less significant for the Spaniards, but still, this noisy holiday in Spain is revered and loved. After a festive New Year's dinner, people go to the main square of their city and join the general nightly festivities. In the center of Madrid, festive events from Puerta del Sol are televised throughout the country. In every city, the holiday is held everywhere, and people from young to old join it, taking to the streets. It is not customary to stay at home on such a night in Spain.

Another feature of the New Year's holiday in Spain was not only the decoration of the Christmas tree, but also the acquisition of a plant called poinsettia into the house. In Spain, it is bought for Christmas, as the plant resembles the Star of Bethlehem in its shape and color of its leaves.

Traditionally, to celebrate the New Year, every Spaniard will take 12 grapes with him to the square, so that with each stroke of the clock he has time to eat them, make a wish and spit out the seeds. Each grape symbolizes one of the twelve months of the year, and in order for them to be successful, you need to have time to eat the grapes. This tradition emerged spontaneously at the end of the 19th century, when a huge harvest of grapes was harvested in one of the Spanish agricultural regions.

The farmers got the idea to take the surplus harvest to Madrid and treat them to people on New Year's Eve for free, so that they taste the taste of their grapes. A little later, the idea came up to eat grapes at midnight under the chime of the clock and make wishes. So the publicity stunt turned over time into a national tradition, which every Spaniard sacredly observes.

On New Year's Eve, the Spaniards do not make plentiful feasts. But the dishes presented below can be found on New Year's tables in every home.

• They mostly eat light snacks.made from seafood, dried ham, sliced ​​cheese, as well as fruits and sweets.
• Most often you can see tartlets or canapes with these products, and for dessert, the hostesses prepare nougat with the addition of nuts, which is called turron.
• For sweets, the Spaniards also love shortbread cookies, almond cakes, apples baked with honey, rice pudding. Confectionery is considered an appropriate and welcome gift for friends and colleagues.
• Spain has long been famous as a country where grape cultivation and winemaking are flourishing, and the Spaniards will always have grape wine on the New Year's table. Sherry, champagne and low-alcohol cider are also popular.
• Just like in Russia, the Spaniards raise their glasses on New Year's Eve, but for the holiday they use cava, a sparkling grape wine that has been aged for at least 9 months. Kavu is made from white grapes and is highly prized for its taste.
• A table decoration for a large family during the holiday can be baked turkey or duck, fish, lamb, pork. But these dishes are more common for Christmas, although they are sometimes prepared for the New Year's too.

According to the tradition existing in Spain, the celebration of the New Year should take place not only in smart clothes. Accessories also require a special approach. This holiday is celebrated in red underwear. Even men support this tradition and wear red socks, believing that they will bring good luck.

New Year's holidays are fun and jokes, city dwellers, long before the holidays, prepare themselves New Year's masks and sew costumes for the carnival. On New Year's Eve, it is customary for the Spaniards to guess their future destiny.Young people and girls especially like to do this - they write names on pieces of paper and put them in a bag, and then choose a couple for themselves with whom they have fun all night. Sometimes such couples soon turn out to be husband and wife.

Before celebrating the New Year, the Spaniards prepare gifts called cotillion. A gift is a sack, basket or handbag into which New Year's tinsel, streamer, confetti, carnival attributes, sweets and small souvenirs are put. If a Spaniard goes on a visit, he will definitely take a cotillion with him for the hosts, but they, too, will endow him with a cotillion. You can open a gift only after the clock has struck 12 times, at this moment everyone congratulates each other and considers their gifts. On average, each Spanish family spends 400-500 euros on gifts for relatives and friends.

Children receive their gifts on Christmas Day, that is, December 25, as well as on the holiday of the Magi, which takes place on January 6. Gifts for children are given by Olentzero or Papa Noel - this is how Santa Claus is called in Spanish. This character puts gifts for children on the windowsill or leaves them on the balcony, and not under the tree, as is customary in Russia. Olentzero has many assistants - these are magicians and good fairies. Children receive the main gifts not on Christmas or even on New Year's, but on the Day of the Magi, which is also called the Day of the Three Kings.

In the next video, you will find more information on New Year's traditions in Spain.