Today is the feast of
Saint Nicholas in Bulgaria and the two preceding days were Varvara and
Saint Sava respectively. It's a big church holiday weekend and the official start of the Christmas season and the traditional time to expect the first snow and cold weather of the winter. Varvara is
Saint Barbara's Day and it changed our plans for a stitch-n-bitch after work on Friday. None of us remembered until the last minute and it matters, at least here! Traditionally, there is no sewing, spinning, knitting, or any other activity done by women using sharp implements on that day to avoid bringing ill health to the children, especially chicken pox and measles. So we worked on heraldry instead.
The city had the tree-lighting festivities yesterday, including lots of fireworks, and the official opening of the skating rink and the Christmas Village. So now the center of the town smells like sausages, which is a good thing today, since Nikolovden involves eating fish and every store in town has been selling them. For my tastes, fish does not smell nearly as good as grilling sausage!