Epiphany and Pies!

January is generally a fun time on Crete. Saint Basil (Agios Vasilis, who is also the Greek Santa) arrives on New Year’s Day. This is traditionally the date for people to exchange gifts. Here in Rethymnon we celebrate Epiphany on the 6th January with a dramatic ceremony in the Venetian Harbour which starts with a demonstration of fireworks in boats and then culminates with young people diving into the sea to rescue the cross that has been blessed by the bishop (the participants are mainly males, but a couple of brave women have also participated in recent years). You can read more about the background to this event in the January 2009 edition of the Bugle.

On January 7th we celebrate the festival of John the Baptist. Though this is not an official holiday it is usually treated as such. Put it this way, the first week of the year is still considered to be very much a part of the festive season and not a great one for trying to do anything official!

Throughout the rest of the month of January people in schools and offices etc. will be hosting their ‘cutting the pie’ parties to wish in 2012. The New Year’s cake / pie (Vasilopita) is an important symbol of good fortune. And by the time we get to the end of January we’ll be preparing for Carnival (more about that at the bottom of this page).

Name Days in January

Aside from Basil and John, here are just a few of the name days that we will be celebrating in the next weeks: 14th: Nina, 17th: Antonis and Theo, 22nd: Timothy, 25th: Margarita / Margaret and Grigoris / Gregory, 30th: Chrysi. For a far more comprehensive list have a look at the www.namedays.gr website. To those of you who have their special day this month we say χρόνια πολλά and wish you all the best.

World Day of the Snowman: 18th January

Making your own snowman on this day might seem to pose a bit of a challenge for those of us who live in Rethymnon, a town which is, after all, on an island in the Southern Mediterranean, but once you come to think about it’s not so unlikely. There is a lot of snow in the area. Just not down at sea level. And as you will see on the following page, one of the CIC excursions planned at the end of the month will be taking us up into the white mountains. So what is the World Day of the Snowman all about? Well, according to the www.worlddayofsnowman.com website the main purpose of the day is given as being to be creative and to have fun, but there are a couple of more serious messages too. The snowman is an emblem of friendliness and sympathy, and the fact that the snowman tends to be short-lived and that snow is possibly more difficult to find in Europe than it used to be may help to emphasise some of the issues associated with global warming and climate change. Anyway, if you do manage to create a snowman (or snowwoman) on this day, we’d love to see the pictures!

Looking Further Ahead: Carnival Preparations

Barely a moment to draw breath and we are entering the carnival season! Carnival (Apokries) takes place during the three weeks leading up to Lent. It is an extremely important time here and Rethymnon is known for having the biggest ‘grand parade’ on the island and one of the most well known festivals in the country. We will be bringing you more information about planned events in our February issue (as we were going to press final details had yet to be confirmed) . But in the meantime, here are a few February dates that you might want to put in your diary: The children’s treasure hunt / official start of Apokries, is scheduled for the weekend of the 4th-5th, the grown - ups treasure hunt for the weekend of 11th and 12th, Tsiknopempti (really big party night in the Old Town) is on the 16th, Parade day should be on the 26th and Clean Monday is on the 27th. It’s going to be fun….

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