Christmas in

Bulgaria
Andrey, Riana and Danaila 7.A class
The beginning of
Christmas
• Bulgarians celebrate Christmas on the
same day Americans do, Dec. 25
• If you’re in Bulgaria during the winter
holiday season, you’ll experience holiday
festivities, Bulgarian style: Cities like
Sofia are bedecked in Christmas lights,
and the Sofia Christmas Market is the
ideal place for travelers to go in December
for a full-on Bulgarian Christmas
experience. 
This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY.
Traditions
• Christmas is one of the biggest Christian holidays.
On this day we celebrate the birth of the Son of God
- Jesus Christ. According to the Gospel of Luke, this
happened in the city of Bethlehem, in the province of
Judea.
• According the traditions in Bulgaria, people
exchange gifts at midnight or in the morning,
greeting each other and making wishes. All wishes
for Christmas should be good. 
• At Christmas, it is customary to light more candles,
fires, a fireplace - if there is one. Candles bring
warmth and richness to your home.
The Christmas dinner

• It is important to serve dishes with meat,

because Christmas is the first day on which the
table can be served blessed dishes.
•  A loaf of bread that can be decorated with
motifs from the birth of Christ or with folk
motifs - leaves, wreaths, branches, birds, and
others. Also traditional shopska salad and
boiled potato salad with leeks. 
• Dessert should not be missing either. It can be
from delicious Christmas cookies or cake.
My mother's special keks
Ingredients:                
1 vanilla
4 eggs                          3 teacups
powder
2 teacups sugar       1 teacup milk
¾ teacup olive oil    1 baking powder
 Christmas
decoration
• For Christmas, Bulgarians also decorate
Christmas trees. They usually put the tree
inside their homes and place Christmas
presents under it. 
• Yet Some Bulgarians still have a
traditional Christmas block called
‘Budnik’ which is brought to the house on
Christmas eve. We decorate the whole
house with Christmas
decorations,garlands,lights and ornaments.
 The history of
the Christmas
tree in Bulgaria
• According to a number of sources the first Christmas tree in
Bulgaria was decorated on 23 December, 1877 by General
Gurko’s officers. 
“To begin with, Bulgarians decorated the trees with apples,
walnuts, popcorn and home-made paper garlands in different
colours. Later, imported sets of glass toys made their way into
the country. They cost a lot of money – 10,12, even up 100 Leva.
And this, with the minimum subsistence level in Veliko Turnovo
at the time being around 30 Leva a month,” Mrs. Nedeva says. 
• A fact not widely known is that the first big private Christmas tree in Sofia was that of politician
and statesman Stefan Stambolov. It was decorated with garlands, glass balls and glittering toys.
•  After being received by him, guests were able to take away a toy as a keepsake. And while in
Sofia Stambolov set the tone of a European-style family Christmas at the close of the 19th
century, the Christmas tree became an established practice in Bulgarian towns much later –
around the 1920s. 
  

This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY.