Merry Christmas to all from your favourite spot in Corfu!
See you soon!!
Greece has many customs and traditions related to Christmas and New Year. There are many that are common throughout the country, but there are also many that are local and not very well known.
Even though the celebration of Christmas has been influenced a lot in terms of decoration and gastronomy mainly by the West, the Greeks remain quite faithful to certain traditions, such as carols, cutting of the Christmas cake, pomegranate breaking, and other traditions. As a celebration, Christmas remains quite family-oriented.
Traditionally, in the coastal regions of Greece, they would decorate the Christmas boat as the Greeks were clearly a seafaring people and thus symbolized the new boat that their life takes with the birth of Christ. When the children sang carols, they took the boat with them, which they most often made themselves, to put the sweets that they were offered. The custom of the Christmas tree came to Greece with King Otto, who was the King of Greece from 1832 to 1862. However, the Christmas tree was later adopted by the Greeks, as the boat was associated with the separation of sailors from their families as well as the sadness and melancholy that accompanied it.
