Merry Christmas from Bulgaria

Trip Start Apr 14, 2006

102

Trip End Jul 2008

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of Bulgaria Kocherinovo, Bulgaria
Monday, December 25, 2006

Christmas was strange for me this year. I'm not the kind of person to be homesick, I just don't really have it in me, but in the days leading up to Christmas and on Christmas day I definitely was. I was homesick not only for my friends and family but for the American traditions that really define the season for me. I've heard that Christmas is really small compared to New Years here, which is probably a hold over from communism - you know, 45 years of no public displays of Christmas takes its toll, even tho Christians still celebrated at home.

So I spent Christmas with my host family in Kocherinovo. It was great to see them as always, but a bit strange. The traditions were so different it didn't seem like Christmas at all. It just seemed like any other day hanging around with my family. Or maybe my family is just more low key about it than others, it's hard to tell

01. baba fima passing out the pitka

. I think not having a tree makes a really big difference, and not going to church and lighting candles and singing carols on Christmas Eve like we do at my church at home. In fact my family didn't exchange presents on Christmas day. The kids did get some presents, and apparently the whole family exchanges presents for New Years. Also I was so disappointed that we didn't get any snow for Christmas!! When Peace Corps told me they were sending me to this cold ass country I thot well at least I'll have a white Christmas for once. But we have been having the warmest winter in the history of Bulgaria (I'm not exaggerating.) So no snow.

Well after whining about how a Bulgarian Christmas doesn't live up to an American one I'll describe the traditions they do have. Although they don't have special traditions for Christmas Day they do have a big special dinner on Christmas Eve. They don't eat dishes with meat. They are also supposed to have an odd number of dishes, but my family didn't pay attention to that rule. At the beginning of the meal there is a special kind of bread called pitka that was baked with a coin inside. At the beginning of the meal we broke the pitka apart and whoever ends up with the coin is supposed to have good luck for the year. Cami got the coin, which I'm pretty sure was arranged purposely by Kiril, her grandfather. During the meal they also burned incense, and Georgi ran around all the rooms with it to cleanse the house

02. georgi with the incense

.

Another Christmas Eve tradition in Bulgaria is that you have to go to all the houses in the family. So you basically eat three dinners (which no one told me til I had eaten a full dinner at the first house.) We went to 3 houses: Baba Fima's, our house, and Desi's mom's house in Barakovo.

So it was nice to see my family again, but as you know I see them pretty regularly. So next year I'm thinking about getting together with some Americans and recreating our own traditions in Bulgaria to make it feel a bit more like home.