Koledarska kitka

Koledarski songs are sung by groups of young men who go from house to house on Christmas Eve and Christmas night in Bulgarian villages, blessing each household in turn; the repertoire is regional and the texts are formulaic rather than fixed. A koledarska kitka is a bouquet of such songs strung together for performance, so its contents vary from one arrangement to another and no single authorship applies. The practice was documented by Bulgarian folklorists from the nineteenth century onwards and survives in both village and staged forms.