How they celebrate Christmas in Greece

Today, on Sunday the 4th of advent, I spent the whole morning in bed. In Sweden I always feel stressed when I wake up late and I never take the time to stay in bed longer than until 9. But here in Greece, my mindset is different, and I find myself enjoying and loving these mornings when I can just lay under my cover in my warm and cozy bed for hours and hours... Especially on Sundays! 

Anyhow, after getting up around 12 I made myself a coffee and did another rapid covid-test which once again was negative. A lot of erasmus students have tested positive this weekend and it's spreading fast among us, which has also ment that a lot of people have missed or will miss their flights back home for Christmas... 

During the rest of the day I went on a small "hike" with Lucie to the area around Kypseli (Kipséli/Κυψέλη) and Ikismos Georgiou Papandreou since the weather was so nice, and it ended up being such a lovely day

For me it was never an option to go home over Christmans and/or New Year's Eve. To be honest, I never even thought about it. This has to do with a lot of personal things, but also because I really want to take the advantage of experiencing how they celebrate it here in Greece. 

So, it makes sense to go though how they celebrate Christmas in Greece in a blog-post!

Greek people are known for how much they love Christmas and all around Athens, in almost every store, restaurant and street, you see decorations and hear traditional Christmas music. Actually, in Greece, Christmas is considered the major and most important festivity of the year. And since most of the Greeks are Orthodox, they celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25 but the Christmas period starts as early as on Agios Nikolaos Day on the 6th of December and ends on Epiphany’s Day the 6th of January. Since the Christmas season lasts during this whole period (14 days), most Greeks will wait until January 1st to exchange gifts in celebration of the feast day of “Greek Santa”, Aghios Vasilis.

Traditional Greek Christmas-foods

Christmas Day is traditionally celebrated with big family dinners. Common foods are pork, stuffed turkey, yiaprakia or kozani (Christmas dolmades, stuffed wine- or cabbage- leafs), roasted lamb, avgolemono (Egg-Lemon Chicken Soup) and christopsomo bread. Common drinks are krasomelo (mulled wine, similar to Gluhwein and Glögg) and rakomelo (raki with honey). But the post obligatory thing on Christmas seems to be the Christmas sweets: Kourabiedes (buttery shortbread-like almond cookies, covered in very generous layers of powdered sugar), Melomakarona (soft and honey, topped with walnuts and slightly gingerbread-like in flavor) as well as Baklava.

And it will take some practice, but hopefully I'll be able to pronounce it right by the time of Christmas eve... "Kalá Christoúgenna kai eftychisméno to néo étos!" is how you say Merry Christmas and Happy new year in Greek. 

With love, Elsa ♡