Bulgarian Christmas and New Years

The craziness and running around of Christmas and New Years has made it difficult to post recent blogs.
Just before Christmas, my roommate and I had a pre-Christmas party with the Youth Parliament. It went really well except for the initial issue of them fussing about the lack of alcohol and too much house music. Like any dinner party, it started earlier then expected and we were missing half the necessary kitchen wear needed to make the food, but all in all it was a great time. The party came to an end around 3 am.......and I needed to catch a train early in the morning in order to go to Boboshevo for Christmas.
I found that I didn't have to take the horribly early 6 am bus out of Karlovo to Sofia. I found a 9:30 train that took less time, who knew! While waiting for the train I saw a man I met at the municipality Christmas party and we spoke for a few minutes about our holiday plans. I met with Joan in Sofia, a woman I trained with in Boboshevo. She and I took a bus headed for Dupnitsa. On the way out of the city her host dad called saying he would be at the bus station to pick us up in his new car. Hooray for saving money! When he got to Dupnitsa, we met up with her host dad (Stephan) and as I was getting into the car, he was telling me that he had seen Jim. I thought maybe I misunderstood and he wanted to know if Jim would be coming to Boboshevo. He explained that Jim was at the Bus station. I let Joan and Stephan go on and I met up with Jim so that we could roam around the old Dup for an hour or so.........since we hadn't been there in over two months.
I saw a few other volunteers that I hadn't seen since swearing in or Thanksgiving in Kazanluk. While in Dupnitsa, I saw traditional Bulgrian dancers dressed in full costume. These are called Kukeri. They wear furry costumes and full head masks with scary faces to drive away evil spirits.
On my way to Boboshevo I rode the bus with the previous volunteer at Stephan's house, Eric and the first volunteer at my baba's home, Abby. I had never met Abby before, but only heard great things from baba and her neighbor baba eyulka. It was so amazing being back in Boboshevo for Christmas. Though it didn't quite feel like Christmas had come, being surrounded by family and friends was what made it special. It had the feeling of coming home from college for the holidays.

On Christmas Eve, Bulgarians celebrate this day without meat. For lunch I had Bop (bean Soup) and Dinner was a feast of banitsa, bop, stuffed peppers, bread, rice wrapped with cabbage and of course rakia and wine. My baba had spent hours that morning preparing two types of banitsa, onion and pumpkin. The pumpkin is called Teek Vaneek. It's a little piece of heaven. At dinner a prayer was read by baba's son-in-law. This is read only at Christmas Eve dinner. I'm assuming it was a prayer remembering the sacrifice of Jesus and how we celebrated that night without meat. Just after this he broke the large round bread that had been specially made for this night. A piece went to everyone at the table and one to the
house, which could also mean for those who had passed. Within the
bread was money. Whomever found the money in their piece of bread would have good financial luck in the upcoming year. I had a one stutinki piece in mine. Now I can just sit back and wait for the dollars / Leva to roll in. I was told by some of the other volunteers that their parents used incense to bless each of the rooms in their house. My host family is not religious at all, but this is not uncommon for Bulgarians after religion was banned during communist times. Christmas tends to be a rather newly celebrated holiday. Christmas trees are only sold days before and only one or two presents are exchanged.
Christmas Day I spend most of the time curled up next to the stove and reading a book. We had a lunch with Baba's family and exchanged presents. I received candy, pantyhose and candles. In the evening I went to Rila. I had been invited for dinner at Jim's host parents home, so I traveled there and his host mom had prepared an amazing amount of food. I wondered if I would pop. I brought three large boxes of candy and a rose oil made in Karlovo. I think maybe she felt obligated to give me something in return so she gave me more pantyhose and some of her owned canned food.
I headed back to Karlovo the day after Christmas. I "worked" for two days and then visited Jim in Chirpan for my weekend out of site. It was a great opportunity to just relax and enjoy the weekend without running all over the place. We made cookies, which some were later given to his baba at the local fruit and veggie stand. We also sat in a local cafe just relaxing and talking about events prior to Peace Corps.
For New Years I had several options up in the air. There was a possibility of going to Plovdiv with friends from Karlovo, spending it with a woman who I work with at the municipality and her family or just going to the center at midnight to hear the speech of the mayor and horo dancing. At the last minute I received a phone call from friends in Karlovo who had reservations at a Club in Plovdiv and wanted me to join. I went, with only an hour to get ready. Other then being a passenger on the Bulgarian roadways in a car I know was going over 120 km/hr it was a great night. At midnight champagne bottles went off all around the room, spraying everyone and everything, followed by horo dancing all around the bar and outside. Fireworks went off days before New Years, but the day of felt like a war zone. After midnight and still large BOOMS! and BANGS! have kept my heart racing and my ears ringing. I got home around 4 am so today has been rather lazy but somewhat productive. That was my holiday in a nutshell.