Greek Christmas Customs (by Konstantinos Martimianakis)

C H R I S T M A S  T I M E 

Christmas in Greece is not anymore what was  40 years ago. Within the years the growth of world culture and the Western European customs have made the local customs disappear.

Today Christmas appears more impressive and glamorous. The windows of shops are decorated almost one month before, in the cities  litted up the streets and the squares.

The Greeks have fun in clubs, in the bouzouki or they will  watch shows on T.V.

Christmas  day  all members of the family sit in the Christmas table. The day of Christmas is the day that celebrate Manolis or Emmanouil or Manos, Emmanouela, Christos and Christina. Their friends and their relatives will visit them in order to  wish  them.

In old days Christmas was simpler, hotter  close to the real spirit of Christmas. 

A little before Christmas,  the preparations began in order that all to be ready for the big feast. The houses were cleaned  and few days before the Christmas women make  sweets sush as melomakarona, which was naturally eaten the day of Christmas. In the past melomakarona  were exclusively for the Christmas and kourampiedes for the New Year's day. 

Christmas turkey has become very popular as the main dish of the holiday. Traditionally, the main course of Christmas dinner in Greece is roast pork. No matter what the main dish is, one thing is certain: Christmas food in Greece is delicious! The custom of the turkey for Christmas arrived in Europe from Mexico in 1824 A. D. It is now widely used in Greece and has almost replaced the pork meat for holiday fare - but not completely.

Christopsomo is the bread that is made on Christmas Eve, which has a cross carved into the top crust before it is baked. On Christmas Day, the head of the household makes the sign of the cross above the loaf of bread, cuts it and gives a piece to each person at the dining table.

Vasilopita is a cake that is eaten on New Year's Day. Before the cake is baked, a coin covered in foil is placed in it. The New Year is written on top of the cake with almonds. The person who cuts the cake makes the sign of the cross three times above it and then starts serving the pieces, one to each person, the house, Christ, The Virgin Mary and Saint Vasileios. Whoever has the coin in his piece of cake will have luck for the rest of the year.

In olden times in Crete it was the custom for each family in the village to raise a pig, or "hog" (hiros in Greek), which would be slaughtered on Christmas Eve and served as the main holiday dish the next day.On the second day of Christmas the villagers would cut up the pork meat and make:  Sausages, apaki, etc.The Christmas pig was the basic source of meat for many weeks. 

The custom that still exists   today is  the children go  from house in house 2 together or even more and sing the carols accompanying their song with the triangle or even guitars, accordion, Lyra, or mouthorgans.

Today they all buy and decorate christmas trees,   naturally or artificially.

Usually they decorate the trees a few days before Christmas and these remain in the houses until the  Fota.

In Crete's older days  this custom did not exist. They used to decorate small ships.                                                            

The song for our Christmas show!

Well done, guys!

Reading competition results 2011

View more documents from Maria Markaki School of Foreign Languages

A Christmas Carol: Audio version

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Happy reading and listening! :-)

Halloween

Halloween is a big celebration on october 31st.Halloween celebrated mainly in The United States and United Kingdom.This day children wear costumes like ghost, vampire,wizard etc.They go door to door to collect candys. They knock on the door and ask '' Trick or Treat''?The people give to children sweets,choclates and some other candies!Children also draw on pumpkins faces...

This is a big celbration and I'd like to take part in.

Halloween

Halloween is a annual holiday observed

on October 31 and

it created 2500 years ago,

which commonly includes activities such

as trick-or-treating,antending costume parties

,carving jack-o'-lanterns,bonfires,apple

bobbing,visiting haunted attractions,

playing pranks,

telling scary stories

and watching horror fims.

It's a famous celebration at U.S.A

(United States of America) ,

UK (United Kingdom) ,

Australia and Japan.

More than a thousand years ago the Christian church named November 1 All Saints Day (also called All Hallows.) This was a special holy day to honor the saints and other people who died for their religion. The night before All Hallows was called Hallows Eve. Later the name was changed to Halloween.
Like the Celts, the Europeans of that time also believed that the spirits of the dead would visit the earth on Halloween. They worried that evil spirits would cause problems or hurt them. So on that night people wore costumes that looked like ghosts or other evil creatures. They thought if they dressed like that, the spirits would think they were also dead and not harm them.
The tradition of Halloween was carried to America by the immigrating Europeans. Some of the traditions changed a little, though. For example, on Halloween in Europe some people would carry lanterns made from turnips. In America, pumpkins were more common. So people began putting candles inside them and using them as lanterns. That is why you see Jack 'o lanterns today.
These days Halloween is not usually considered a religious holiday. It is primarily a fun day for children. Children dress up in costumes like people did a thousand years ago. But instead of worrying about evil spirits, they go from house to house. They knock on doors and say "trick or treat." The owner of each house gives candy or something special to each trick or treater.

halloween

Halloween (or Hallowe'en), a contraction of All-Hallows-Eve (as in the day before "All Hallows" or "All Souls" Day), is an annual festival observed on October 31. In recent years the American inspired (and US media driven) commercialisation of this date (previously marked in the UK by children carving lanterns in turnips or swedes and little else - pumpkins being scarce) has resulted in the importing of US traditions such as "trick or treating", costume parties, and carving to the lanterns from real pumpkins which are cultivated specially for this purpose.

A place I'd love to visit

LONDON

A place I'd love to visit is London. I've heard that it's a really beautiful city with a lot of greenery, big shops and attractive sights. One of these sights I want to see is Big Ben because it looks really phenomenal in the photos. I want to stay in the Hilton London Canary Wharf hotel because I've heard it's very comfortable and modern. While I'm in London, I'll go to;

• the London Eye
• the natural history museum
• the science museum
• many shopping centers
• a football match of Manchester United or Liverpool

One important reason I want to visit London is that I will be able to practice my english skills, especially my pronunciation skills. I think this journey is the most suitable for me because I will practice my English skills in a fun way. I hope I go there soon...

A place where I want to go.

                                                      My favorite destination


  The place where I would really like to go is New York.I think that

it is a city with beautifull sites for you to visit and it can also offer you great accomodation.
   A very popular sight that you can visit is the statue of liberty,another very popular sight to visit is the museum of modern art where you can learn a lot about art and artists.Furthermore you can go to the brooklin botanical garden where you can see many different types of plants.In

http://www.new-york-hotels-usa.com/sights.htm

   The public transport in New York is very exciting as you can go to places with many different ways.In my opinion the best way to see the town is by taking the double decker bus tour which will go through the center of the town.Another very good thing about New york is that you will receive great accomodation.You can find very luxurius hotels but on the other hand you can also find cheaper hotels if you do not want to waste a lot of money on your accomodation.In the city there are also some very good restaurants where you can find every type of food you want.You can find Chinese food and recipes from many other countries.    http://www.newyorkrestaurants.com/

   I have never been to New York but I am sure that one day I will go because in my opinion it is one of the most exciting attractions in the world.

   

Horrible bosses!

The last film I saw in the cinema was called ''Horrible bosses''. I know it sounds boring ,but it's a comedy that you shouldn't miss.In this comedy there are three friends that their bosses are really annoying and rude to them .So they decided to kill them ,but sometimes many things just not go well .Of course I'm not going to tell you the end . I saw this film and I couldn't stop laughing .It's a fantastic film and I can confirm that!

A film review

Last Saturday I went to Talos Plaza with my friends to see Johny English:Rebron .I saw the trailer in Youtube and it was very funny.Johny English is a retired special agent because he has made a mistake during a speech of the President of Africa.He had to protect the president because there were assassins at the speech who killed him.Now English is in Thibet and he learns karate from a xiaolin master.English returns to London for his next mission.His mission is to find the cause of the assassination of the African President .In my oppinion the movie was very unexeptable and funny.I enjoyed the film.Starring: Rowan Atkinson

Film review

One week ago I went to the cinema with my friends Aliki,Tony and Xrisanthi. We saw the movie "FINAL DESTINATION 5". This movie is a horror film. It was amazing!

The director of the film is Steven Quale. The writers of the film are Eric Heisserer and Jeffrey Reddick. The main actors of the film are Nicholas D'Agosto, Emma Bell and Arlen Escarpeta. In this film a man in a bus has a dream about a bridge which is destroyed and all his friends die. After a few minutes the dream is real. All the things he has seen in his dream become real. So he tells his friend before the bridge is destroyed to get out of the bus and go away from the bridge. They listen to him, so they are safe now. After that event, they don't feel so good. Suddenly, one by one start to die!

Article.

In this post I will write an article about my favorite teacher.

                                                     The best teacher I have ever had                  


 I've had many teachers in my life.Most of them were good and friendly; however, there were some bad teachers too.But the teacher that stood out for me was my English teacher, Jim Tsigkenis, who taught me a lot of great things.

 The main reason I like this teacher is because of his character.He's thoughtful,friendly and also he is very helpful to us because whenever we need help he's there.He is always patient and waits for us to answer. Even if we don't know the answer, he gives us time to find it out.

Another thing I like about Mr. Tsigenis is what he does in his lessons.He tries to make us understand what he is saying and not just read what the book says.Furthermore, he is making the lesson more interesting by telling jokes once in a while.In addition to that, he asks us to bring information about certain sights in England from the Internet so that we can practice English while we are surfing the internet.

I think Mr. Tsigenis is the best teacher I've ever had and I wish we have lessons with him the next year too.His lessons were very pleasant and fun. I also wish all the teachers were as good as him.

Essay

In this post I will write an essay discussing the advantages and disadvantages of being rich and successful.

Many children wish when they grow up to be very rich and successful, but not everything is wonderful in these people's life.At first glance it looks like it will be a wonderful life,however when you get older you realize the disadvantages and the advantages.

Some of the advantages of being rich and successful are that you are able to travel all over the world.You are also able to build a very big house in the country.Another thing you can do if you are rich and successful is that you can buy very expensive clothes or go shopping and buy whatever you want.

 However,there are some disadvantages of being rich and successful too.One of the disadvantages is that you may worry about losing your money.Furthermore you might not have enough time to do everything you want,like visiting your family or your friends or maybe doing the hobbies you like as you will have to work hard to make all those money.

 In conclusion,being rich and successful can be very nice but there are some more important things in life like having a family and being happy.In my opinion I would rather have enough money so that I am able to live a comfortable life with my family and be happy than be rich and successful and do not have enough time to do things that make you happy.

__________________________

Text corrections (I am leaving your original post as it is so as for you to be able to compare it with the corrected version):

Many children wish to be very rich and successful when they grow up, but not everything is wonderful in these people's life. At a first glance, it looks like it will be a wonderful life; however, when you get older you realize that these advantages are followed by certain disadvantages.

To start with the positive side of fame, one main advantage of being rich and successful is that you are able to travel all over the world. (why? explain!)You are also able to live in luxurious houses built in a dreamy location. Another thing you can do if you are rich and successful is that you can buy very expensive clothes or go shopping and buy (acquire/ purchase-> use synonyms!) whatever you want.

 However, there are some disadvantages of being rich and successful too.One of the disadvantages is that you may worry about losing your money.(What are the results of this? e.g. increased stress. Expand every argument!) Furthermore, you might not have enough time to do everything you want,like visiting your family or your friends or maybe doing the hobbies you like, as you will have to work hard to make all this (uncountable noun!) money.

In conclusion,being rich and successful (wealth and fame-> use synonyms!) can be very nice (impressive/ enchanting/ exciting-> use more advanced words than nice!), but there are some more important things in life, like having a family and being happy.In my opinion, I would rather have enough money so that I am able to live a comfortable life with my family and be happy than be rich and successful and not have enough time to do things that lead to true happiness (paraphrasing!).

An article

GRAFFITI

The earliest forms of graffiti date back 30,000 B.C.E in the form of cave paintings and they were painted in caves all over the world. Today, graffiti has developed very much. Some of the most common styles of graffiti have their own names. A "tag" is the most basic writing of an artist's name, it is simply a handwriting.

Last month an exhibition took place in Heraklion, on a very big wall close to my neighbourhood. Artists from all the Heraklion went there and painted lots of beautiful graffiti. Some of my friends and I painted our own graffiti. All of the graffiti was wonderful, and I always enjoy it when I see that wall.

However, sometimes graffiti can be annoying and also very offensive. Artists very often paint their graffiti on private property which is very annoying. Graffiti can also be very insulting because fans of football teams insult other football teams by painting graffiti.

Despite these objections, I like this hobby and I will keep painting graffiti in the future. I am sure it will continue in the future, and I think graffiti will develop very much.