{"id":3775,"date":"2010-12-25T19:40:03","date_gmt":"2010-12-26T00:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=3775"},"modified":"2019-12-15T20:07:10","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T01:07:10","slug":"yes-virginia-hellenes-have-christmas-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=3775","title":{"rendered":"Yes, Virginia, Hellenes Have Christmas Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Two decades ago, Ann Landers did a column about how various cultures celebrate Christmas.\u00a0 Halfway down her list was this gem: \u201cIf you are Greek Orthodox, your sect celebrates Christmas on January 7.\u201d\u00a0 Several people wrote back that 1) the Orthodox church is not a sect \u2013 it is the original church from which the Catholic one split after the Schism of 1054 and 2) only the so-called Old Believers track Christmas by the Julian calendar.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of this when I was leaving work two days ago, and a colleague asked, \u201cShould I wish you Merry Christmas?\u00a0 I heard you Greeks don\u2019t celebrate it like we do.\u201d\u00a0 As readers of this blog know, I\u2019m an atheist who misses many of my culture\u2019s old customs, particularly those that thrum with pagan echoes. So I\u2019m going to put my tour guide\u2019s hat briefly on, and tell you what we Hellenes do around the time of the winter solstice.<\/p>\n

The holiday lasts two weeks, from December 25 to January 6.\u00a0 At the three punctuation points (Christmas, New Year\u2019s, Epiphany) children make the rounds of the neighborhood houses, singing songs called k\u00e1landa.\u00a0 These remain unchanged from the Byzantine era; they\u2019re different for each of the three days and the kids sing them to the accompaniment of hand-held metal triangles \u2013 and more rarely, small bodhr\u00e1n drums.\u00a0 During these two weeks, people thought that mischievous spirits (kallik\u00e1ntzaroi) prowled the dark.\u00a0 These obvious descendants of fauns and satyrs take a solstice break from trying to cut down the world tree that holds up the earth.\u00a0 During the interruption the tree heals, leading to infinite annual repetitions.<\/p>\n

People decorate their homes and start the feast preparations on Christmas Eve \u2013 and the original focus of the activities was not a pine or fir tree (a recent import from Northern Europe) but a small ship.\u00a0 After all, we were seafarers even before I\u00e1son sailed Argh\u00f3<\/em> to the Sea of Azov in search of the Golden Fleece.\u00a0 The main dishes vary regionally, but ham is not on the list.\u00a0 Piglet, kid and lamb on the spit are, as is hen stuffed with chestnuts and raisins \u2013 turkey is too bland for Hellenic palates. The ubiquitous sweets are finger-sized melomak\u00e1rona (honey macaroons) and kourabi\u00e9dhes (butter almond cookies).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On December 31, families gather for the countdown, nibbling finger food \u2013 and at midnight, the ship horns can be heard from harbors and seashores, ushering in the new year.\u00a0 Presents are put under the ship or tree when it is decorated but they get opened on January 1, either right after midnight strikes or in the morning.\u00a0 The gifts are not brought by Santa Claus (Nicholas) who in the Hellenic hagiology is the patron saint of sailors.\u00a0 Our giftbearer is Saint Basil, based on a real person: Vas\u00edlios the Great Hierarch, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia in the 4th century.\u00a0 From a wealthy and influential family, he took time between arguments about dogma to succor the poor and needy, spending his entire inheritance on charity.<\/p>\n

On the night of December 31, a candle is left burning next to a goblet of wine and a small plate that holds a golden coin (flour\u00ed).\u00a0 On New Year\u2019s Day the coin, presumably touched by Saint Vas\u00edlios, is baked into a rich bread pudding (vasil\u00f3pita), which is later cut into named sections.\u00a0 Whoever gets the coin will have an exceptionally good year.\u00a0 On the same day, the youngest child of the family is the first to walk through the front door for good luck \u2013 often bearing a just-budding wild onion bulb, or cracking open a pomegranate\u2026 old, old symbols of wealth and fertility from the time when the virgins giving birth were called Isis, Astarte, P\u00f3tnia.<\/p>\n

Epiphany, which rounds out the holiday, is also called The Lights.\u00a0 On that day the priests go to each house, blessing it with a sprig of basil dipped in water.\u00a0 Afterward, the priests from every coastal city, town or village throw a cross into the sea.\u00a0 Young men dive to retrieve it, and whoever brings it back is blessed.\u00a0 Just so did priests and priestesses of other religions also appease the oldest goddess of all \u2013 Tiamat, Th\u00e1lassa \u2013 by offering her rings and other treasure instead of crosses.\u00a0 The custom was retained by the Doges of Venice, the city state that owed its existence to the sea.<\/p>\n

A few years ago Mr. Snacho and I found ourselves in Tarpon Springs, Florida, at the turn of the year.\u00a0 The city was founded by sponge divers from the island of K\u00e1lymnos.\u00a0 They still throw the cross into the sea.\u00a0 Young men still compete for the honor of retrieving it.\u00a0 And I, an exile by choice who\u2019s often homesick for the place I left almost forty years ago, wept at the sight.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Images:<\/strong> 1st, Eir\u00edni Vasile\u00edou, cover for her The Christmas Ship<\/em><\/a>; 2nd, kids singing k\u00e1landa; 3rd, photo by Mithymna\u00edos<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two decades ago, Ann Landers did a column about how various cultures celebrate Christmas.\u00a0 Halfway down her list was this gem: \u201cIf you are Greek Orthodox, your sect celebrates Christmas on January 7.\u201d\u00a0 Several people wrote back that 1) the Orthodox church is not a sect \u2013 it is the original church from which the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biology-and-culture","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}