Christmas customs, Crete
«Xygopites» (suet pie or suet pitta)
On Christmas Eve, in the villages of eastern Crete, the Day of Agii Deka (Ten Saints) is celebrated. As part of the celebrations, they slaughtered pigs, which all year round fed them with acorns, humus and leftovers and they are used their fat, that is called glina, as butter and they made the so-called suet pie (xygopita).
«The pig of Christmas»
In Crete, there was a custom where every family in the village used to grow a pig, the "pig", as they were saying. The pig was slaughtered on Christmas Eve and it was the main Christmas dish.
On the second day of Christmas, the villagers cut the pig meat and made:
• Sausages
• ‘Apaki’: smoked pork meat
• Pihti (tsiladia): any trace of meat from the pig's head is removed and all together is boil. The broth with special preparation turns into a thick jelly that contains the pieces of meat.
• ‘Siglina’, that is, the pig's meat cut into small pieces, which baked it, put it in large containers and covered it with the molten fat of the animal. The fat was shedding when it lost its heat and the meat could maintain for several months.
• ‘Omathies’, that is the pig’s intestines that were stuffed with rice, raisins and pieces of liver.
• ‘tsigarides’, pieces of cooked fat with spices that they ate it with fermented bread for snacks in the countryside when they picked up the olives.
The pig of Christmas was the main source of meat for several weeks. Of course, we refer to a diet extremely poor in meat, the famous diet of Crete (Mediterranean Diet), which gave health and longevity to the Cretans of the past decades.
Nothing was lost from the Christmas pig, for every piece of the animal there was some use. Even this bladder, the "bubble" as it is called, was washed and cleaned, and then inflated and became a ball, a precious gift for the children of that time.
The custom of "Airs"
In the past, since the Christmas Eve, the farmers and shepherds have been saying "how the times and the airs are fighting, who will be born and who will be baptized." Whoever is born, whatever wind overrides the day of Christmas, it will keep itself up to the celebration of the Epiphany for the most time of the new year.
"Christopsomo" (Greek Christmas Bread)
As in many parts of Greece, so in Crete, Christopsomo dominates in the festive cuisine and the tradition says that, in its ferment, the housewives of Crete are singing "Christ is born; the light goes up, the leavened dough to be born."
This Cretan traditional sweet bread is decorated with ‘xomplia’. These ornaments symbolize mallets, animal birds, births of the land (farmland) or more simply with a cross that is symbolized the martyrdom that comes.
In the old Crete, they looked particularly at their animals, which also had a share in Christopsomo. They ground a Christopsomo, mixed it with bran, and gave it to the animals to eat it, in order to be blessed, too. They were taking a goose or sheep to their house because they thought they were blessed as they were the animals that warmed the Nativity with their breath.
