Sofia. Christmas. December. Already.

A piece of me can't believe it.  I'm flying back to the states in a few weeks to celebrate Christmas and New Years at home with my family.  I am going to take some Bulgarian treasures home with me for my family but I can't say much more than that because well my family reads my blog.

At this point, I am making a list.  But there's little point in checking it twice because I really have yet to purchase a single gift.  I know that I've got time. It's not like it's the night before I am leaving and I shopping at Billa in order to try to buy everything I need for my family the night before and wondering if my brother would prefer a Kinder Surprise egg or a jar of lutenitsa.  Actually, thank-god I am not at this point, yet, but there is a piece of me that doesn't feel too far away from that and I can't help thinking: who <em>would</em> like a jar of lutenitsa? I mean doing all of my shopping at Billa would be <em>easy</em>.<!--more-->

It's not as if I am a Christmas grouch far from it. I really love Christmas--I've never met a christmas cookie I didn't like, I love candy canes--not the taste as much as the shape and seeing them hanging on pine trees, the music--both secular and religious, the food, the colors red, white and green, and celebrating with my family and friends. The thing is it's harder to get in the Christmas spirit in Sofia than in other towns I've lived in.

We don't have a Christmas market. We don't have mulled wine (which in my mind is a shame). We don't have an obnoxious and ostentatious display of Christmas lights (Though I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to this along Aleksandar Malinov--imagining street light after street light hung with a giant snowflake lights would go pretty far to adding a little cheer to my little corner of Mladost). Moreover there hasn't been a sign of a single real snowflake this month and it hasn't even gotten cold enough to even thing about it.

We do have an ice skating rink that apparently has gone up but I haven't seen it yet. And I don't ice skate (I am afraid of it).  I noticed that McDonald's has some strings of lights up but last night I couldn't remember if they've always been and I only noticed now.  Billa put a santa hat up on the building next to its name and a small Christmas tree but these look comedic than genuine give their small size and the giant size of the Billa name--the name really dwarfs the decorations.

So, what's a girl to do? How am I ever going to get into the spirit?

Maybe I'll buy some handmade socks by babas, a wide variety of rose water products, Bulgarian pottery, embroidered table cloths and rakia.  Maybe this will do the trick. And maybe then I wont have to give the gift of lutenitsa.