Pasifai, from the center of Athens, through its flavors and hospitality, tries to transport you to beautiful Crete and the Christmas holidays.
The season of Christmas and New Year is full of customs and traditions in Crete. Many, in fact, have been preserved to this day. So let’s start a journey of traditions in Christmas Crete!
The Christmas pig or Hoirosfagia
Pig slaughtering is one of the oldest customs, but it is still preserved in several villages of Crete. During the time, each family raised a pig. On Christmas Eve the pig is slaughtered and served as the main course at the Christmas table. What remains of the pork is preserved and stored to be consumed throughout the rest of the year. Thus, using the meat, the Cretans make sausages, apakia (smoked meat), chiladia/pichti, syglina, omathies, cigarides.
Doodles and ” sleepless ” fireplace
According to tradition, children born on Christmas Day, i.e. those conceived on Annunciation Day, are transformed into leprechauns, small mischievous and mischievous creatures (goblins) that appear on Christmas Eve. Only on the Day of Lights, when the consecration takes place, are the leprechauns purified and become human again. For this reason, on Christmas Eve it is customary for the Cretans to light the fireplace, in order to keep away the mischievous gnomes, but also the evil spirits. The fireplace continues to be lit throughout the festivities.
Traditional carols
On Christmas and New Year’s Eve, children in pairs or in groups of most people go from house to house to sing Cretan carols, often accompanied by instruments (trigon, lyre, guitar, etc.). Cretan carols are still sung today.
The custom of the dough and the branches
On the night of Christmas Eve, housewives put some dough on a plate and waited anxiously for the dough to rise so that it would become leaven. They believed that at that moment Christ was born. Similar is the custom with the branches and shoots that the housewives cut on the night of Christmas Eve and put in a glass of water. According to tradition, these bloomed at the time of Christ’s birth.
Scaffolding
The chive or skeleton is a plant, which even when uprooted from the earth continues to bloom. In some areas of Crete, on New Year’s, they decorate the entrance door with a spring onion as a symbol of good luck and euphoria for the household.
The custom of the stone
On New Year’s Day, the Cretans in some areas of Crete are used to placing a large stone at the entrance of the door. The stone symbolizes the solid foundation, peace and happiness that Cretans want to bring home with the coming of the new year. It is an ancient custom that has been preserved since the 6th century BC.
The good hand
On New Year’s Day, children who visit a house, that is, do footwork, it is considered that they will bring luck to the household and for this they are given a “good hand”, that is, usually some amount of money or some treat.
Confectionery
During the holiday season, Cretans, in addition to the sweets they make all over Greece, such as kourabiedes, melomakarona and vasilopita, are used to making xerotigana, loukumades, glukokouloures, mizithropitas, samosas and katimeria. In addition, in Heraklion, Crete, on New Year’s Eve, the residents are used to eating bougatsa, so that the rest of their year will be sweet.
Some of these sweets, of course, you can enjoy with a visit to Pasifai along with other unique, traditional Cretan flavors and special wine!
We wish you Happy Holidays and we look forward to seeing you at our place!