The Feast of the Fallen Leafs

The Feast

This is an annual festival that takes place in Torrinos around the end of the first quarter of the year, when the cold season is approaching and trees are losing their leafs. The streets of Torrinos are coloured in the yellow, red and brown of the drying leafs and local residents collect those already on the ground in huge sacks in their backyard. Leafs are collected throughout the third month of the year.
On the sunset of the day when daylight and sunlight are equal, residents make huge bonfires with the leafs, which burn so bright they turn dusk into dawn. It is also common for people to thrown specially-made dolls into the fire. The dolls symbolise the Sun God, who is now "returning to the flames" and will be seen less and less frequently over the next three months. The burning of the Sun God is intended as a gesture of "safe journey" and "please come again soon".
Once the bonfire has diminished to no more than 50cm over the ground, people use it to prepare their special banquet for the night. A pig or a chicken is sacrificed in front of the flames (richer households might even consider sacrificing a cow), cut up and placed on spikes by the flames to cook. The juices from the meat are collected and put on fresh bread loafs which are eaten with the cooked meat. Alcoholic drinks are more abundant than usual, and people are expected to eat and drink well into the night. The idea is to welcome the darker, colder part of the year by eating well and keeping warm on this day as a way to set the trend for the months to come.

Origin of the Feast

Nobody knows the exact origins of this tradition, but some claim is it as old as the Kingdom of Astania itself (never mind the fact that Torrinos did not exist back when Astania was founded over 1000 years ago). The most accepted theory is that it started when Torrinos was chosen as the new Astanian capital and the noble elites moved to the city. They decided to show how rich they were by burning away resources that the common folk would have spent the entire summer gathering in order to survive the incoming winter. Noble houses would have huge bonfires for a week and make barbecues out of at least a third of their heard (then promptly buy everything again so they could, in fact, survive the winter).
Overtime, the local population rioted at such a blatant waste of resources and threatened to rebel. The way the King found to pacify its subjects without upsetting the court was to dress up the bonfires in spiritual significance and inviting everyone to join in the new festivities. The crown organised bonfire-barbecues in the city centre and encouraged popular participation.
Once the idea of bonfires spread through distinct social classes, those who could not afford to burn wood started to gather the fallen leafs instead, as they were an abundant resource free of cost. And thus the Feast of the Fallen Leafs at last took its current shape.

Components and tools

All fallen leafs one is able to gather through the month, fire, a sacrificed animal (usually a pig or a chicken, but can also be a cow), any alcoholic drink of your preference.