As the big day approaches I was just wondering what people are having
for their Christmas dinner .Is there a traditional Bulgarian Xmas dinner?
Are turkeys readily available.....mince pies.......Christmas pud etc?

Would be interested to know.

David and Brenda :Xmas3:

spent a Christmas with some Bulgarian friends last year and the Christmas celebrations start on December 24th, which they called “Badni Vecher” they believe that if their life is good on Christmas Eve, then it will be good during the whole of the following year, Christmas Day in Bulgaria is with the whole family and having A special diner, of 12 dishes, all of them without meat and each of them represents a separate month of the year. The dishes were of various types of beans, nuts, dried plums, cakes, and the traditional Christmas Banitza bread which has a silver coin in it, the person who gets the coin will be the luckiest in the family during coming Year, we all sat on straw bales and had to leave the table together, at the table, fortunes are told, To predict what the year ahead is going to be like, everyone cracks a walnut and if it tastes good it means the year is going to be very lucky, if the walnut is empty or has a bad taste it means the year ahead is going to be very bad, they also make Predictions about the expected crops, each family member's health, and relationships. This is just a little bit of what goes on and my own experience I'm sure there will be others who have had a Christmas Bulgarian style .

Ps they were orthodox so no alcohol

you can get turkeys ,goose duck here now....xmas pudds mince pies ..come back in my suitcase from uk .cos im too lazy to make them ..as would have to make the sweet mincemeat as well .....table tops have them sometimes

Cheekychops, that sounds like my idea of a good time. As a nearly veggie (I eat a little fish) and non drinker, combined with loving food, sounds perfect.

Varnagirl, one of my ideas for making a bit of pin money for Christmas was to produce traditional Christmas goodies for ex-pats who might be missing them. I was in catering for years so it wouldn't be new to me. Always assuming I will have a kitchen to work in of course.

Back here in Cheshire I will be doing a small turkey for the dogs and Mr Eq. I have not done him a proper turkey since the year that his parents came up from Kent, and half an hour before the turkey was due out it started snowing (yes, snow on The Day!) so we went off to get the old horse in and told the in-laws it would be fine till we got back. When we got to the yard one of the naughty ponies had been through all the electric fencing and pulled it down. By the time we got home after repairing it, the turkey was inedible. We had tried to phone for them to turn the oven off, but they didn't answer because it wasn't their phone. This year the big lad is more likely to washed away in a flood!

I love all that goes with the turkey, with special love for a nicely cooked sprout (yes, really!) dipped in my lovely rich bread sauce. Miss the pigs in blankets though, even after nearly thirty years. And proper gravy, veggie gravy lacks depth. Just have to have plenty of bread sauce.

Whatever you have, I hope you all enjoy your day.

Mrs Eq

I did the same last year Varnagirl - brought the works back with me from my pre-Christmas UK visit. However, this feast had a disastous consequence for my Hero. December 28th he was rushed to hospital with a near death emergency and spent the next 10days there as I have written somewhere here on the forum. I have a wonderful photo of him tucking into his Christmas dinner looking the picture of health with his plate of turkey bought frozen from the Bulgarian supermarket.
This year was going to be a much simpler affair with roast chicken and a variation on mince pies coined from a cookery programme on TV. That was until - first our local shop lady put by a lovely piece of pork for us and yesterday our neighbour gave us a live goose! You can't give back a gift so it was put in with our chickens for the night. This morning my Hero did the deed (he doesn't like doing it so veggies don't read this!) and it will be hung, plucked and de-gutted by me for Christmas dinner. Fingers crossed when December 28th dawns!
By the way, we were encouraged to buy a packet of dried mixed fruit also from our local shop which was packed with villagers shopping for their feasts. Anyone know what they do with this? I have re-hydrated it in water and honey and could serve it as in UK with custard but what do the Bulgarians do?

Thanks everyone for your interesting replies.
The traditional Bulgarian Christmas sounds lovely,so uncommercialised.
We are celebrating our final Christmas in the UK and so it's most interesting
to learn a little of what we can expect next year.
Hope you all have a lovely Christmas Dinner .......don't forget the Rennies!!

:Xmas3:

If you want to know what Bulgarians get up to at Christmastime watch Bulgarian TV. Last night Vasko the Patch was on BNT with guests (he's a well-known and loved Rocker) and the programme was great even though we could only understand malko. Today there have been programmes and features on the news all about the traditions of Christmas with the food, costumes, events for kiddies et al. Brilliant. It seems they still keep to many of the age-old traditions and it was lovely to see.
There were also a couple of English films I enjoyed today - Íts Complicated'with Meryl Streep, Baldwin and Steve Martin. Hilarious and then the cartoon of a fairly recent Scrooge which was a lesson for us all about Christmas Spirit.
Bravo Bulgarian TV and Chestita Koleda to you all.

E Chetstika Kolada za Tep , Militzka.

Bazz, smart ass I can't translate this via Google can you update in English as well please

E Chetstika Kolada za Tep , Militzka

Sorry, not trying to be a smarty pants..it simply means "
and Merry Xmas for you, my dear"
.

bgbazz wrote:

Sorry, not trying to be a smarty pants..it simply means "
and Merry Xmas for you, my dear"
.

:Thank you:I thought that was what it meant but google would not translate it - Hope you had a good one Bazz