Happy Valentine's day

Happy Trifon Zarezan day

The old, traditional holiday in my country is about wine, but the day of love came along and here we are intoxicated with love and wine.

The day of St. Trifon is celebrated in Bulgaria from a very long time. This day is celebrated by winemakers and vine growers and St. Trifon is their patron. It is the day of the wine. On that day the vines are pruned, the wine is poured in their roots for big harvest. Tradition dates back before Christianity. Like many other, later they were adopted by the church and we got a saint to protect the vines and wine. 😉However, the saint bears a nickname and I am not sure if I could translate it correct. He is called Trifon Zarezan, which means Trifon the pruned. The legend about him is how I remember it, told by my mother and she knew it from hers. On that day, Trifon went to prune his vines. The February day was very cold and he drank some wine to warm up. Making swift cut of the vine, he missed next and instead cut (pruned) his nose.

!

The saint is depicted on icons holding that pruning knife or sickle, not sure which word is the correct.

This is an Orthodox Christian icon of St. Trifon from 18th century. You can see how the saint is holding a cross and a pruning knife.

Here his hair looks a bit messy, like he might have a sip or two. 😉

Who knows what the painter had in mind at that time. 🤔

Source

Before Valentine's day was introduced, you can imagine how people were gathering to celebrate by drinking a lot. You may ask why we did not celebrate St. Valentine before. This is a Catholic saint and we are Orthodox in Bulgaria. That's for a start. Secondly, during the communist regime it was impossible to have such celebration of love like it was in the Western countries. With the changes in our political life, there were many others - for good or for bad. But this is something to talk about in another post. So, with the wind of change, the day of love became also part of our life, mainly among the young people in the beginning.

Back to love.

Although 14th of February became very commercialized, still it is so nice to get something special from you partner. Some say we need love all the time, gestures of affection to be shown not only once and why we should make a big fuss on that day?!

I am lucky to have someone who cares, who makes me smile everyday. And yet, on that day can surprise me too. What I got? Hubby made me a cake and it is soooo delicious.

How would you like to spend that day is entirely up to you. If you think it is just another day, like many others, fine. If you think to make it a bit special, why not?

Although in my country one can hear different opinions whether we have to stick to our traditions or to be more open, some prefer to make it 2 in 1 and to have a double pleasure - love and wine.

❤ ❤ ❤

🍷 🍷 🍷

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