December 2006

There doesn't really seem to be much time left over for anything but celebrating one important name day or the other! Gifts to be taken (flowers, cakes or a bottle of whisky for the adults, Barbie or a computer game for the kids), drinks and cakes to be consumed in vast quantities, sometimes more than one house to be called at on the same evening. St Spiridon's day is a real test of endurance, for we all have at least five friends called Spiros. Strategic planning is required to fit in all the visits.

A very large number of Greeks are called Nicholas (Nikos) and their name-day is celebrated on 6th December. It used to be common in Greece, as in other parts of Europe, to exchange gifts on this day, and Christmas itself was strictly a religious celebration. Gifts, new clothes, feasting, were reserved for 1st January, St Vassilis (Basil) Day. From 6th December until 7th January, there seems to be one saint's-day or celebration after another.

With weather like we have been having for most of November, and likely to continue until Christmas as it often does, this is a great time of year for walking and beachcombing with the dogs. The all-year round swimmers are in their element, and quite a few summer-only swimmers have been tempted by the sun to extend their season.

The hunters are peppering the skies at dawn and dusk, hopefully not achieving much, but causing a lot of irritation - at times it can sound as if you are living in a war zone.

The more adventurous, with the time to spare that winter gives most of us, otherwise seasonally employed in tourism, go just a little further afield, across to the mainland for whitewater rafting just south of Ioannina, up into the mountains of Epirus for climbing, and soon we shall be going for weekends to Metsovo for skiing.
While we have the weather, December is full of outdoor pursuits, from sailing to chopping wood, from picking olives (this is a 'heavy' crop year) to coffee and gossip on the Liston.
Tabletop sales, craft fairs, Christmas bazaars - visits to Jumbo and M & S - what a variety of pursuits!

The patron saint of sailors and travellers, but also of marriageable maidens, judges, thieves and murderers, St Nicholas is widely believed to be the origin of the Santa Claus or Father Christmas figure. An all-round good person - look him up on the Internet and find out some fascinating information about him.

The local supermarkets do their best to keep up with foreign Christmas tastes, but on occasion clearly find our national obsessions a little mystifying. A couple of years ago the AB supermarket had a proud display of jars of mincemeat on which a notice, in Greek, advised that this was what the English stuffed their turkeys with!

A particularly pleasant tradition is that of the carols performed by members of the Anglican Church congregation while walking about Corfu Town. Dutch, German, French and other foreign residents of Corfu keep up their traditions too, making Corfu a wonderful place to spend the winter holidays as well as the summer ones.

Needless to say, food plays a very large part in this month's celebrations, especially very, very sweet food.
Some women still make their own Christmas cookies - but bakeries, pastry shops and supermarkets are fragrant with the piled trays of cookies and Christmas bread.

Kourabiedes are the ones made from crushed almonds and dipped in icing sugar, melamacarona are spicy little cakes soaked in a syrup made from brandy and orange juice and sprinkled with crushed walnuts - you begin to get the picture ? In other parts of Greece, with an even sweeter tooth than Corfu, the melamacarona are dipped in chocolate, making them doubly lethal. Christmas bread is made to a recipe common in Italy and the Middle East, called Tsoureki here. It is sweet, stretchy dough, shaped into plaits and coils and glazed with egg and with a subtle flavour that comes from an ingredient called 'mahlepi'.
A special cake is baked for New Year's Eve, when families gather (and the cake has to be gigantic in size to cope!). A coin is baked into it for luck, and a strict ritual is involved in cutting the cake, with the first slice for St Vassilis, the next for the oldest member of the family, and so on down through the family members, even to the livestock!

It's one of those intriguing flavourings without which Greek cuisine would not be the same. A finely ground white powder, it is made from the inner kernel of the fruit pit of a Persian cherry. Sounds exotic, doesn't it? It gives tsoureki its distinctive flavour and fragrance of bitter almonds.

Add your caption to the above photo:
December Caption Competition

Globalisation has affected Christmas of course - in Greece roast turkey is now almost universally eaten for Christmas, whereas, in Corfu at least, turkey was at one time boiled and served with the ubiquitous egg and lemon sauce. Greek words have been set to carols and songs familiar to American and European ears, but the children still tour the neighbourhood houses singing the traditional Greek 'kalanda' - with the same music but different words for Christmas, New Year and Epiphany! In spite of the claims of St Nicholas and St Vassilis, Christmas is now the time for giving, as they say.

A very American custom, that of decorating your house with lights for the Christmas holidays (as immortalised in the National Lampoon classic film with Chevy Chase and about a million light bulbs) has recently been adopted in Corfu, with breathtaking results. It is now an established custom to drive your kids around the town and suburbs of Corfu to see the lights, and it is the individually decorated houses that take the breath away. Perhaps the star of the season is always the same one - opposite Mon Repos, utterly over the top and quite delightful.

Christmas trees are popular, though there was once a movement to ban them as not being a Greek custom. It was suggested that model boats should be set up instead, decorated with lights, as being more appropriate for Greece. Boats are seen in public places, but the Christmas tree still reigns supreme, often artificial, sometimes real, though the random cutting of trees is forbidden and they must come from commercial sources.

Corfu town is always beautifully and tastefully decorated with cascades of white lights strung in the trees along the main streets and around the main squares.A life-size Nativity scene is set up in the middle of town. Shop windows are delightful, with a heavy emphasis on the Victorian Christmas that probably never really existed but is faithfully 'reproduced' by Taiwanese workers for our pleasure.

Christmas in Corfu is still a family celebration, one that gives pleasure, empties out your purse, raises your cholesterol, and still remembers what its origins were - the Birth of Christ.

The period after Christmas is always an anti-climax, but in Corfu it is one that is slighty delayed by January 1st. New year's Eve, and the custom is for everyone to play cards, honouring an ancient tradition involving St Vassilis and the Turks (so they say). For one night it is legal to play for money. Men, women and children put their cents and euros on the table and deal the cards or play roulette, interrupted only by the cutting of the Vassilopitta. The aim is to play the whole night long, even the kids!

GREETINGS
We at Agni Travel wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Healthy and Happy New Year!
Chronia Polla! Kala Christouyenna! Eftihismenos o kenourios chronos!

Well, now is the time to flop back on the sofa, turn off the TV (it's only repeats, after all ) and start thinking about holidays. Agni Travel has some new properties for you to consider in Corfu, and is very pleased to be featuring Paxos and Crete for the first time.