Yılbaşı Gecesi
New Year’s Eve, with festive home dinners of roast turkey, decorated trees, street illuminations and midnight countdowns.
Yılbaşı Gecesi, or New Year's Eve, is a significant celebration in Turkey, marking the transition from one year to the next. The festivities typically begin in the late afternoon with family gatherings and continue until the early hours of the next day. One of the most iconic traditions is the preparation and enjoyment of a lavish dinner, often featuring roast turkey, dolma (stuffed grape leaves), and various meze (small dishes) accompanied by rakı, a traditional anise-flavored spirit.
Turkey does not celebrate Christmas, so the things that go with it elsewhere, the decorated yılbaşı ağacı, Noel Baba and presents, have all attached themselves to New Year's Eve. After dinner families play tombala, a bingo game with numbered stones, and wait for the Milli Piyango draw, the national lottery whose New Year jackpot is the biggest of the year. At gece yarısı, midnight, fireworks rise over the Bosphorus Bridge and Taksim Square fills with crowds, and the wishes go round: 'Mutlu yıllar!', happy years, and 'Yeni yılınız kutlu olsun!'.
The pack has 35 words spread across these domains.
Same words in both. Beginner gets more help: matching and completing. Advanced listens and spells it out unaided. Pick it in practice; it locks when you take the scored run.
Practise as often as you like, all year. The scored run happens once, while the competition is open, and cannot be retaken.