New Year’s Eve

Learn about New Year’s Eve in Mexico

Also Appears In: Lessons for Kids Connecting with Spanish-Speaking Family Discovering Your Roots (Mexican Spanish) Culture File: Mexico

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Lesson Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the Culture File: Mexico series at SpanishPod101.com. In this series, we’re exploring essential cultural information about Mexico, Mexican Culture, and Mexican People. In this lesson, we will keep learning about winter holiday traditions in Mexico. I’m Michael, and you're listening to Season 1, Lesson 7 - New Year’s Eve.

Another important winter event in Mexico is New Year’s Eve or "Año Nuevo". When the world has reached the end of another year, the final few hours left before the new year begins are always full of new projects, good intentions and resolutions, or "propósitos", for change.

In Mexico, as it is in almost every corner of the Earth, this is a time for people to weigh up the good and bad things of the year, and to make all those resolutions that they intend to try to fulfill, such as to quit smoking, or "dejar de fumar", to lose weight, or "perder peso", to go to a gym, or "ir al gimnasio", and so on.

But of course, that’s not all it’s about! It’s also time for one of the longest, most tiring and most expensive parties of the year! New Year's celebrations usually start with a dinner with family or friends on New Year’s Eve, which lasts until twelve at night, the moment at which all of the TV channels connect to an emblematic clock, where the ringing of bells, or "campanadas" is heard. As these bells toll, it’s traditional in Mexico to eat a grape, or "uva" for each ring, while thinking about something you want to accomplish or receive during the coming year. Supposedly, if at the end of the twelve strokes the person has managed to eat the twelve grapes, those wishes will become true! This tradition comes from Spain, where grape producers were accustomed to eating lots of grapes during the last day of the year to ensure a good harvest the coming year.

After the bells have rung and the grapes are eaten, many young people flood the streets in groups to go to parties in bars where they spend the entire night, practically until the sun comes up.