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About one month before Christmas is the time called “Great Fasting”-in other words,time when we eat no meat. That’s because we want to purge out our bodies and souls for the greatest holiday of Jesus Christ. Christmas Eve is the end of this “Great Fasting” or to be more exact-the last day of it. On Christmas Eve all the family has dinner together. The hostess prepares nine meals without meat. Some of them are:beans, vine or cabbage sarmi, stuffed peppers, turshia, walnuts, apples, honey, ushav, loaf, etc. For example the stuffed pepper could be prepared with rice or bean. According to the old tradition the peppers before being stuffed are dried on the sun . The vine sarmi without meat are actually vine leaves stuffed with rice and spices and the cabbage sarmi are made by wrapping the mixture in leaves of sauerkraut. The trushia (pickles) is made of vegetables-carrots, cucumbers, cauliflower, small pepper, garlic, celery, tinned in special sauce of vinegar, oil and salt. There are always walnuts for anyone in the family on the table. To understand what the year is going to be, everyone has to crack a walnut. If it is good and delicious-the year is going to be lucky, if the walnut is empty-expect something bad. The ushav is a traditional Bulgarian meal. It’s prepared by boiling dried fruits. Each hostess makes for the holiday a holiday loaf. We put a coin in it for luck. The oldest man in the family gives a piece of the loaft to everyone. Who gots the coin will be a lucky man during the new year. An old Bulgarian tradition is not to clear the table after finishing the dinner. It is believed that the souls of those who lived in the house, but now are dead, come back. On Christmas the”great fast” finishes and we can eat meat again. Usually most of the Bulgarians eat pork-steak, kebap, sausage and other meals. The kebap is prepared by cutting in small pieces the pork stewed with onions and red pepper. The sausage is made of home-made minced pork. In Bulgaria Christmas is the time when thinking which of these traditional meals to cook we purge out our souls. Well, we cannot hide that it’s pretty pleasant not to stop eating for three days. But we don’t think only about meals, especially when we sing: “Silent
night, holy night,
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