Yalda Night · Shab-e Yalda

/ʃæb-e jæl.ˈdɒː/

Culture of origin: Iranian · Ancient festival

Holiday sources: Azerbaijani · Gilak · Iran · Mazandarani · Talysh · Zoroastrianism

Yalda, also Shab-e Chelleh, is the winter-solstice night between the last day of Azar and the first of Dey. Family and friends stay up past midnight eating fruit and nuts, above all pomegranates and watermelons, whose red recalls the dawn and the glow of life, and reading Hafez and the Shahnameh. Yalda is a Syriac word for "birth", borrowed from Eastern Christians; Chelleh, "fortieth", names the forty-day great winter that this night opens. The Talysh keep it as Chyla shav, 'the fortieth night', with a watermelon for the Sun, pomegranates, walnut halva and chylyma, a dish of stuffed game; the groom's family sends the betrothed bride gifts, chyla shala.