New Year's Day
1 January 2026 — Happy New Year! Health and good fortune to you all!
The first of January opens the Gregorian calendar year and is celebrated almost everywhere in the world. That calendar was introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, while the custom of starting the year on 1 January goes back to the Roman calendar, where the month was named after Janus, the god of doorways and beginnings. In Bulgaria the day is marked by survakane: children and young people visit homes with decorated cornel branches called survachki and, with wishes for health, luck and prosperity, gently tap the hosts on the back. A festive pie with little fortunes baked inside is often served. At midnight on 31 December, squares and skies fill with fireworks. The date is not tied to any particular astronomical event. It comes about ten days after the winter solstice (around 21 December), when the days are already growing longer, so the new year begins just as the light slowly starts to return. Curiously, Earth also passes perihelion, its closest point to the Sun, in the first days of January, but this does not affect the length of the day.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver figure of a small child carrying a decorated survachka (a cornel branch adorned for New Year), drawn from light dots and thin lines like a constellation walking across the sky
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