so...we are in the 2 last days of the big Easter celebrations..
let me share with you some customs we have for Easter. Easter for Greeks is the biggest celebration of all. We celebrate Easter more than every other Orthodox countries and societies on the world!! Kids accept gifts and their Easter candles ~ the ones that carry the Holly flame in our houses~ from their Godparents. So every Godparent brings an Easter Candle, clothes or shoes, chocolate eggs and an easter bun to his/hers godchild. Godparents supposed to bring these goods to their godchildren until the age of 18. My Godmother still brings me my Easter Candle, my Easter bun and she always brings me something for my house (towels, sheets etc ~ I'm quite big to bring me fluffy and cute dresses heh) but this year she is quite sick ~ she is 82 years old!!! so she couldn't come but she is always in my prayers!! So I made my own candles for me and hubby!! I really like them and they had big success!!woohooo.
Anyway let's continue with the customs. Big Thursday~ we dye the eggs red . that means that Christ's blood painted the eggs. Big Friday ~ we have the Litany of Epitaphs. Big Sunday ~ at 00.00 midnight we celebrate Ressurection of Christ. We go at Church, light our candles with the Holly Flame and when we come back at 3.00 am we make a chross outside our doorstep and we eat the traditional magiritsa ~ a soup based in vegatables and insides of lamb...I don't like it. Old people did this cause the wanted to prepare their stomachs for the big feast after 40 days of fasting. We bump our red eggs to wish for the Easter and then the guys preparing the lamb and the kokoretsi for Sunday.
So Easter Sunday....ok...hmmm let me try to describe it with few words....food, food and more food!!! people go wild!!! 20 kilos of lamb on the spit!!! yeah... 20 kilos for max 10 people!!!!amazing huh??? traditional dances, food, red eggs, wine, tzatziki,kokoretsi, and more food till the end of day...yeap crazy I know. well hubby and I don't do any of the above...we try to be reasonable!! heh but his parents do all the above!!! so this year we went to celebrate Easter with them and all this happened. My FIL this year didn't tried to stuff me with all this food!! but of course he gave me so much food to take back to our home that I'm sure will last for 2 weeks lol!!!
oh also i want you all meet John the lamb. I think this lamb is very lucky as he didn't have the destiny of other poor lambs...anyway he is so cute and he drinks a huge bottle of milk in les than 2 min!!! amazing huh???
ok that's it for tonight...I need a soda even if I didn't ate so much...just in memory of all this food...and consider that Greeks are in a huge crisis right now!!! are they?????? I know hubby and I are but what about all the other people spending more than 500 euros for just the Easter Sunday meal???people traveling around Geece when fuels costs 2 euros per litre!!!???
we spent 100 euros for food, fuels and some chocolates for friends and family. but not for the Easter day. for the Big week and the week before... I wonder how people managed with all this Easter frenzy...
anyway sorry for bothering you with my thoughts and the strange ways of Greeks...hope you found something interesting here....
also I'll try to cardmake more the following days
till then
hugs
xMx
Marion it was so good to read about how you celebrate Easter. I wish you a very Blessed time, even if a little late. Traditions are so wonderful, and I think so much is lost with younger people moving away etc.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post Marion. We have Greek friends and I know how much they are struggling at the moment and how much the Church is part of their everyday lives. Hugs
ReplyDeleteChris x
Thanks so much for enlightening us to what is happening and all the wonderful traditions AND photos.
ReplyDeleteI’m Greek, I’ am a teacher and I believe that you should be more careful on what you’re writing about Greek people right now. Children are starving in many schools
ReplyDelete( they don’t have books either), let alone that the majority of greek population lives below the poverty line. You should also consider that other countries have similar and expensive customs too (for example thanksgiving day). I happen to know a lot of people who went nowhere. They didn’t have the money to afford a “fancy” Easter table. Some lucky ones probably did what you did, visited their in-laws and celebrated decently. Our nation is on crisis right now, the number of suicides increases day by day and the last thing we need is someone to blame our few moments of joy and happiness. If you want to blame something, blame the bad political choices that people took and the general ignorance.
A Greek citizen
Johny Walker 35 I don't blame anyone. I'm just observing some things. My friends see all these and ask me questions. So I answer them. and alow me to have my own opinion as I see whats happening around me. The past 3 weeks the "crisis" was out the window. The pour people I agree they are hitted hard right now, but all the other people walking on clouds. I don't see any punishment and please...the political guys just doing their job...eating more and more. The thing is that we don't do anything about it. Did you see the galops about the parts??
Deleteif you need to talk more about the subject I would love to receive an email in my email account as my blog is about cardmaking and not all these. I wrote these 2 posts to explain our traditions and I had some questions about it.
hugs
xmx
The only thing I did is to make you pay more attention about your statements :
Delete( ..” other people spending more than 500 euros for just the Easter Sunday meal???people traveling around Geece when fuels costs 2 euros per litre!!!???”).
People that read your blog don’t live in Greece and perhaps they are unaware of our hard reality. Perhaps they don’t know that our salaries have fallen bellow 1000 €, and will reach Bulgarian salaries ( around 200 € !!!). They only thing they hear is the accusations of Angela Merkel and her euro partners-bankers. Things are pretty difficult right here, and are getting more and more difficult as we speak! As for your other opinions, I totally agree but this is not the appropriate place to talk about it. So just be more careful
well the thing is that this happens here and even the salaries are below 800€, people spend so much money!! In a time were my boss haven't payed me for 3 months now, my DH is unemployed, my brother too and so many other people around me not only in my family! and I just asking were did they found so much money to spend on just an Easter Meal??? not everybody but many people I know and others I don't they did spend a lot of money! and as for Merkel well I don't blame her. She is trying to do the best for her country. I blame my politicians that they don't do anything to prevent Merkel and every Merkel to do this to my country. also I blame people who wear blinders and don't know what's happening outside their door. and last but not least no one can tell me were to talk about matters that consider me and my friends. do you know that many people who read my blog try to find me a place to live and a job? well sorry johny walker35 but this is the reality. some people in greece don't have a pair of shoes and others eating with golden spoons. I believe that you are not in the second category but please don't try to protect a country that is rotten and sends away her children.
Deletehugs
xMx
I feel sorry for your family’s difficulties; however let me enlighten you about some things. First of all there is no such thing as a rotten country. Countries are neither rotten, nor something impersonal. They are made of people who give their own identity. The bad thing about Greece, is that Greek citizens are weak, passive and ignorant, all at the same time. It is easy to blame politicians, though everyone seems to forget that the majority of Greeks voted for them, several times and the rest of them were (how did you call it? oh yes!) walking in the clouds. No interest in what was happening in the country whatsoever for so long. This is the mistake we are all paying for. And it keeps on coming. Second of all, Merkel doesn’t give a shit about German people. The only thing she does is put taxes on them in order to pay for our loan installments ( and for Portugal and Ireland as well), but the thing she doesn’t say to them, is that this money doesn’t go to Greek people. It goes to THEIR BANKS AND BANKERS. This is the trick and Germans falsely believe that THEIR money go to help the “lazy and immoral Greeks”. That is not the case of course. Third, there is no country without its poor and rich. So yes, there’re people without a pair of shoes and people with golden spoons everywhere in the world, even in times of crisis.
DeleteI do believe that it is our duty and responsibility to change all of that. Not only for a minority on Syntagma square who are brutally beaten by policemen every time they protest. I must admit however, that moving abroad seems like a logical choice, since everything here goes down the drain, but it’s not the solution. It’s YOUR country too after all, not only theirs.
Good luck with your life
Ps: nice cards
thanks for the copliment on my cards...for the rest you can send me an email to talk about
Deletehugs
xmx
Thank you for sharing your customs and parts of your life - I treasure learning about the customs of other countries, and although I am over half a world away from you I understand something of world politics and how Greece is struggling.
ReplyDeleteHere in NZ we too have poverty and wealth - it is common to all, no matter what the political situation, but I acknowledge that Greece is in a far worse situation than us.
Blessings
Maxine