GETTING READY FOR CRETAN CHRISTMAS

K and I had always understood that Christmas in Crete was far overshadowed by the celebration of Greek Easter, but we have been surprised to see all the shops decorating their windows beautifully with very artistic displays and the odd snatch of a Christmas carol at one or two street corners. There were many more Christmas Cribs around than in the UK and so we are confident that the Cretans haven't completely forgotten about the child born in a manger and what it was all about in the first place. We thought it would be interesting to discover the local traditions and, for our part make some mulled wine and mince pies to take round to our neighbours Costas and Angeliki at the cafeneon on Christmas Eve either before or after the village church service and hope that this will be acceptable.

As Christmas trees do not grow on the island, all the trees we have seen are artificial imports and therefore very expensive. However, when we were pollarding our tree at the front of the house earlier in the autumn to give Angeliki's goats some welcome greenstuff, one of the lower limbs did have a rather Xmas tree type shape – so we took off the leaves, put it on one side and thought about how we could use it instead.

It looks OK from a distance!

The result was slightly in the style of Salvador Dali but if you stand at the right point in the living room and close one eye – it does look very festive. Along with the gifts of oranges, cinnamon sticks, cloves and nutmeg, we have enough to make the house look pretty and will not go short of vitamin C over the festive period.

Looking West with the White Mountains far away on the horizon

December weather is very warm in Crete but I have learned that it is warm outside and cold inside the house. On Sunday, we noticed that there were a lot of strange people in the village making their way to the village church and we wondered if this was a special Greek Orthodox festival. The weather was sharp and cold when we got up, but the sun shone strongly and we thought we would explore the olive groves and vineyards beyond the village and find out whether we could walk down to the sea. Our path took us up hill all the way and small birds with songs like skylarks darted in and out of the long grasses as we made our way through farmland, olive trees, heathland and rocky slopes for a good long walk. A flock of sheep hopefully made their way over to us expecting that we would bring them feed – but soon realised that we were not their owners and turned away again. We kept climbing up and up until we could see a magnificent view in all directions. Blue, calm sea in one direction, Mount Psiloritis to the South covered with a silky sheen of fresh snow and ice, the White Mountains to the West and a rumpled counter pane of fields, villages, orchards and olive groves closer to us. With all the thick layers I had donned in the morning, I was boiling hot and had to take off coats and jumpers until we got home and went indoors again. 

We were too high up to reach the beach

Kimon was ready to go back!

Sadly, we learned that the people going to church were attending the funeral of our friend Nikos' son-in-law, which means that his daughter Georgia has been widowed early in life with young adult children. We had no idea and were grappling with words when Nikos, visibly shaken, came round to see us later on. It is at times like this when not having the necessary Greek words is a real burden and shows me that I have to try much harder to learn. I ended up doing the only thing I could think of by baking a cake to show our feelings, even if we could not articulate them.

With the financial troubles and austerity measures which have now been imposed, things have changed a lot during the year we have been in Greece, Many of their government departments are being completely shaken up and we have so much more to learn. However, we realise that most Greeks are struggling to understand all the new systems which are being put into place – so we are not alone and will have to puzzle it all out together.

We are planning to have friends to stay over Christmas weekend and plan to gather around the Log Burner here at home, with good traditional fare and home made gifts, silly board games and Skype on all day to catch various children in various parts of the world. Cretans have a celebration dinner of pork on Christmas Eve. We have learned from our village friends that simple gifts of food and friendship are best and have surprised many of our friends by sharing big bags of oranges, lemons and olive oil which are so much more scarce and expensive in the towns. We swapped oranges for broccoli during the week and wonder if this may be one of the ways forward as people's belts are having to get tighter. We think that it was a lesson learned well here in the chequered history of the island which has been occupied by so many different forces over the centuries - that everything had to be tended and grown for sharing – and it seems to have become a long term tradition. What better way to encourage true health, wealth and happiness.

HAVE A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR.