Christmas Abroad? Crete Traditions

Villa plus are a fabulous self catering company with gorgeous self catering Villas throughout Europe. One of the places they have some beautiful villas are Crete. But what if you wanted to spend Christmas there? What are their local traditions and customs? Well with 95% of the population being Greek orthodox they do do things a little differently to us! For example rather than a Christmas Tree they would traditionally have decorated a boat!

They don’t have very strong traditions but their advent runs through from the 6th December through to 6th January. It’s also worth taking note that the children of the island have to wait for New Year which is when St Basil delivers their presents!

Surprisingly they didn’t have the traditional turkey as their Christmas until recently. It was most likely to be a succulent roasted pork or lamb. On the evening of Christmas eve Children will go round their village and sing Kalanda (the equivalent of our Christmas Carols). These Kalanda bless the house. Rather than chocolate the children tend to be reward with sweets and dried fruits. And speaking of food after they have used the Christmas pork and made sausages and a huge variety of meat to last for many weeks the housewives having deep cleaned the house make these scrumptious Honey Cookies – Melomakarona which are made exclusively for Christmas.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups oil

1 cup sugar

1 cup orange juice

1 cup fine semolina

1 kilo soft flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

Lemon and Orange zest

Simple syrup: (In a pot, mix together 1 cup each of water, honey and sugar and

bring to boil while stirring constantly.)

Crushed walnuts

Preheat oven to 200c

Beat oil well with mixer, then add the sugar, both zests, orange juice, semolina, and then, a little at a time, the flour mixed with the baking soda.

Form the dough into small shapes, as the pastries will get quite big while baking. Make sure the oven is hot before baking, otherwise the pastries will flatten. Bake for about 30 minutes until pastries are firm and golden brown.

When completely cooled, arrange in rows in a pan and pour warm syrup over them. Sprinkle with crushed walnuts.

These cookies are normally baked on Christmas eve as  they have a fasting for 40 days before Christmas. They wouldn’t eat any animal or its related products i.e. meat, dairy eggs. While traditionally it was for religious reasons they also believe it’s a healthy practice as well.

 And as for having the White Christmas in the Greek islands? Well head your car up to the mountains and build your snowman! They bring it back downtown with you. Place it on the top front window of your car but just be careful not to do a quick turn on your way back down!

The biggest tradition of the season has to be at the end of Advent on the 6^th January. A  long procession forms and follows a road down to the water be it a sea or river. At the front are the Priests who lead the way. At the end of the event the priest throws a cross in to the water which serves for the blessing of the water and Christ baptism in the River Jordan. Then for those who can brave the winter water, drive into the icy water and try and retrieve the cross. Whoever brings the cross to the service has good luck and health for the whole year!