24 DECEMBER - CHRISTMAS EVE
 

It is also called Sukha koleda /Dry Christmas/, Malka koleda /Little Christmas/, Kadena vecher /Incensed Night/, Bozhich. The forty-day Advent, starting on 15 November, finishes on this day. Folk beliefs hold it that the Mother of God began her labours on St. Ignatius’ Day and gave birth to God’s son on Christmas Eve, but that she told of it only on the next day. As a rule, when bearing her first child, a young mother did not let others know it on the same day, people were told about the event only on the next day, when guests were invited. The yule-log, the festive dishes, incensation and the ritual breads had an important place in the Christmas Eve festival. The yule-log /badnyak/ is a three-year old timber, specially picked up. It was cut in the wood by a young man who brought it home and made fire with it. According to the popular belief, the yule-log kept the fire in the hearth during the whole year. There were three kinds of ritual bread. The first was dedicated to Christmas. The second one blessed the rural occupations - field farming, cattle-breeding, as well as the house and the household goods. The third kind of bread was made for the waits /koledari/ who would go carolling. Special rituals and songs accompanied the preparation of all three kinds of bread. As songs relate, flour was sifted by three sieves described as silken. Incense was burnt on the ploughshare, and the water used to make the bread was brought in a white caldron by a girl or by a young woman married in the autumn preceding Christmas Eve and having borne no children yet.

The Christmas Eve feast should be plentiful and the dishes - vegetable and odd in number. Traditionally, wheat is boiled and dishes like boiled haricot, leaves stuffed with rice or grouts, and stewed dried fruit are cooked. The Christmas fare provided at table includes also garlic, walnuts, honey, onion, summer fruit kept fresh, wine, brandy - everything that has been produced during the past year - fresh or processed. Wheat grains and the Ignazhden ring-shaped cake are also put on the table. In some places in Western Bulgaria, in the neighbourhood of Teteven, in the Plovdiv district, as well as in the Macedonian region unleavened bread with a silver coin in it used to be baked. Straw was spread under the table. Different objects were placed around the table - the thong of the plough, a mitten full of grains, a bowl of sand, a purse full of money, a sieve full of grains and a bunch of basil and garlic tied up to it with a red thread, a sickle. Only family members attended the Christmas Eve supper and it was necessarily censed. The eldest man or woman incensed first the table and then all the other premises in the house, as well as the courtyard and the cattle-shed. People believed that incensation drove the evil spirits away. The supper meal on Christmas Eve began early in order to make corn ripe early. People were not supposed to leave the table before finishing their meal - in order to make hens sit on their eggs and brood chickens. Only the head of the family was allowed to leave the table, but he had to bend when stepping - the way the crop was expected to bend with grain. The remaining bread was shelved - to have the crop grow high in summer. After supper the children rolled over on the straw on one side, so that the corn stems would weigh down. The walnuts, the wheat grains and the rest of the candle burnt at the Christmas Eve table were preserved for the next incensed nights. The fare itself, depending on the type of foods served, was commemorative. A place at the table was left vacant - for the dead (relatives or other dear people). The table was not cleared for the night because people believed that the deceased would come to supper. At the Christmas Eve table fortunes were told. Predictions were made for the weather in each month of the new year, for the expected crops, for each family member’s health, for the coming marriages of the girls. At midnight on Christmas carollers started their round. They visited the houses of their relatives, neighbours and other people in the village. Carol-singers were boys aged 8 to 12. These singing visits were called ‘carolling”. Each caroller carried a cornel stick. Carollers were heralds of carol-singers. Carollers’ songs were not exactly Christmas songs, but only short tunes and refrains. The mistress of the house had prepared (early in the morning) ring-shaped cakes and when carollers came, she gave them of these cakes together with dried pears, plums, apples, grapes, walnuts.