Traditional Calendar
DECEMBER

Winter feasts start with St Nicholas’ Day, celebrated on 6th December. Fish meal is cooked on this day (usually stuffed carp). The next feast after St Nicholas's Day is St. Ignatius’ Day. On that day predictions are made, for example the first guest who enters the house on that day is very important because if he is a good person so the following year will be good year, but if the guest is a bad person the following year will be bad too.

Christmas is celebrated three days in succession – on 24, 25 and 26 December. Six weeks before that day, true believers should start keeping the fast – full abstention from meat and dairy products is expected. Christmas Eve is on 24th December. The table on the Christmas Eve must be teeming with food and should include at least 7, 9 or 12 vegetable dishes as this is the last day of Long Lent so that the coming year is abundant. The master of the house puts „yule-log" (special firewood) in the fire, which burns in the fireplace all night to drive the Evil spirits away from that house. After midnight the Koledari (Carol-singers) go out carrying the good news for the birth of Christ. They wear their best clothes and from midnight until dawn carol-singers go from door to door and sing Christmas carols. Hosts present their guests with a ritual ring-shaped bun. Finally carol-singers gather together and hold a copious feast and part of the food that has being collected is distributed among the poor.

On 25 December during the day, the pig that has been fattened throughout the year is slaughtered and the festive dinner is prepared. The most popular dish on the table that night is roast pork with pickled cabbage or roast turkey with pickled cabbage.

Christmas marks the beginning of the so called Dirty Days, which continue twelve days, until Saint Jordan's Day. People believe that during those days the forces of evil go out. To drive evil forces away special rituals are carried out called Kukeri (Mummers games). They are performed mainly by men wearing special costumes and masks, representing a ram, a billy-goat or a bull. Masks often have two faces symbolizing good and evil. These games are most expressive and sumptuous in Pernik, Petrich and the southern part of the coast. Such mummers carnivals are carried out during the spring cycle too, around Easter with the most spectacular games being held in the village of Shiroka Laka. The mummer games originate from the ancient heathen rituals dedicated to the underground and natural forces. The visual effect of those costumes is also increased by the sound of copper and bronze bells hanging on them. Such customs exist also in some parts of Italy and Spain and there are many similarities in the rituals and the costumes of the participants.