427c Christmas in London, Umbria, France, Norway, Greece, Basque Country

22:50Is that pretty much the same? In France, you go for weddings, funerals on Christmas. That's it. So the churches are packed at midnight. If they do it at midnight, in small villages, they wouldn't have attendance because people would still be eating at midnight. So they do it like earlier, seven o 'clock, eight o 'clock. In Brittany, if you go back to your childhood, what's your fondest memory of Christmas? Waking up my brother, who's three years older, the morning of Christmas, and just running to the tree and seeing that the Père Noël, Santa did actually drink a little bit of what I left for him and a bit of the cookie, and seeing all of the presents.

23:24And no whip. No Père Fouetard. No whip. And Patrick, what is your fondest memory of Christmas? I mean, I was playing with the boxes, the presents came in. Is that right? Both of those images could happen anywhere in the world, I would imagine. Of course. That's beautiful. Patrick Bédard and Virginie Moray, merci bien and joyeux Noël. Merci, joyeux Noël. Now let's head to a land of reindeer and snow. Paul Johansson joins us from Oslo for a peek at the Christmas season traditions he enjoys in Norway. Merry Christmas, Paul. Gouyul. Gouyul, yes. What does that mean exactly? That's how we say Merry Christmas in Norwegian.

24:06Go Jule. Is it good Jule time? Yeah. Go Jule. Go Jule. What distinguishes a Norwegian Christmas from maybe a German or an English or an American Christmas? Well, first of all, we celebrate Christmas on the day of 24th of December. Okay, so Christmas Eve. That's Christmas Eve. That's the big day for us. And I would say the food is what distinguishes it. Is this the time for hardworking parents to bring out all the traditional foods? It is. It is. to some's pleasures and to others' nightmares in a way. So explain. Well, Norway used to be a very poor country. A hundred years ago, we were the poorest country in Europe, actually.

24:44So during the long winters, when people didn't have anywhere to store their food and there was no access to getting fresh food, they had to find ways to preserve food. Before refrigerators. Before refrigerators. And they developed all kinds of techniques to do this. like, for example, gravlax, like digging down salmon. So you'd bury salmon? Yeah, they bury salmon to preserve it. To preserve them or rot them with control? The gravlax is not rotten. But there's another dish, which is called fermented trout. Fermented trout. So this would be in the inland part of the area. In the inland, yeah, part of Lillehammer area.

25:21I've never encountered that on a menu. And you eat it with lefsa, which is this potato bread. Okay. So I can see young people kind of getting nervous before Christmas. Oh, we have to eat the fermented trout or the buried salmon. The thing is that I don't really like the fermented trout, but I have to eat it anyways. It's not Christmas unless I eat this kind of thing. So that's part of the ritual. Yeah, it's part of the ritual. But you know what really is my memory about Norwegian Christmas is all of the beautiful julekaka, the Christmas cake, right? Yes. Can you describe a julekaka? Traditionally, every housewife made an assortment of julekake, Christmas cakes.

25:59I think it's seven different varieties that they had to make. Is that right? They couldn't celebrate Christmas without having made the seven varieties. Tables full of cakes. Full of cakes all through Christmas. Eating, eating, eating, sleeping, and then eating again. Okay, so walk us through Christmas. First of all, actually, you have a Santa Lucia day. Santa Lucia, yeah. It's a pagan tradition. It was December 13th. Yes, it is. It's bigger in Sweden, actually, but we do it in Norway as well. But in Sweden, the adults do it. In Norway, only kids do it in school. So they dress up in white dresses, and they come through the hall in the schools with lit candles, and then they sing the Santa Lucia song.

26:41You know, I was in Norway once on Santa Lucia Day, and there was even candles in the cemeteries at the gravesites. Explain that. Well, that's how we commemorate the dead. So your loved ones who have died, they put a candle on their grave. Yeah, and we like to visit the grave during the holidays. So that's why, especially during Christmas, you will see the graveyards are totally lit. Just flickering with candles. And I just love the scene of the Santa Lucia procession going through the graveyard up to the church with all the candles flickering. Yeah, it's very special. Very nice. Okay, so that's December 13th.

27:14And then Norwegians celebrate Christmas more on the 24th, on Christmas Eve. You have a big family dinner. and Norway is probably one of the least church-going countries in Europe, but on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, what's the church situation? Well, I'll be honest and say that most people don't go to church. They don't even bother going to church on Christmas? Not really. Norway. There are more people going to church during Christmas, but no, the churches are not full. It's more of a family thing. It is a family thing, family getting together. When Christmas approaches, what are the children excited about?

27:49Of the gifts. The gifts and meeting Santa Claus, or our version of Santa Claus, who is the Nisse. The Nisse? Yeah, Nissefar. What is a Nisse? Nisse is a gnome, actually. A little guy with a red hat and a woolen sweater. And a big white beard. And a big white beard. A little short guy, about one foot tall. Yeah, he is. And he lives out on a barn, on a farm. Oh, he does? Yeah, so on Christmas Eve, your mother and father will make some porridge, and you go and put the porridge into the barn. And then a couple of hours later, you go out there again and then the porridge is gone. And Anissa had come to eat it.

28:26So the Anissa are there. There's evidence. Oh, yeah, there's evidence. And then later in the evening, they come and knock the door and everybody's exciting and the children are screaming and, wow, the Anissa is coming and he comes in the door with some gifts for the children. Somebody dresses up like Anissa and comes in? I was actually Anissa last year. You were Anissa? Yeah, I was. And you dressed up? I dressed up. Put on a beard. Yeah, and scared my little niece. And is there some way that parents can terrorize their children into behaving well by threatening them for no gifts from the Nyssa?

28:58Yeah, that's what we say. You have to behave well. If not, Nyssa will not come this year. Yeah, we say you've got to be, are you naughty or nice? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then after the Nyssa has visited the house, we go around the Christmas tree and sing Christmas carols. Paint that picture for us. Is it outside, inside? Oh, it's inside. Inside? Inside in the living room. People gather literally all around the Christmas tree. Around the Christmas tree holding hands. This is something a Norwegian family would do if there are children. And singing traditional carols? Yeah, traditional carols and going around.

29:32And yeah, it's great fun. What's the situation with the commercialization of Christmas? Is it a big shopping festival in Norway like it is in the United States? It is becoming like that, I would say, unfortunately. and also we see the tendency that Christmas tends to start earlier and earlier. Historically or traditionally, it did not start until the first Sunday of Advent, which is end of November or start of December. But now we see that the Christmas decoration starts to come up in the beginning of November. Creeping forward for more shopping, more retail activity. Yeah, unfortunately. This is Travel with Rick Steves.

30:07We've been talking about Christmas in Norwood. Paul Johansson from Oslo. Paul, let's close our little Norwegian Christmas discussion with one of your fondest, happiest memories as a little child of Christmas when you were a little boy in Oslo. Oh, well, it's just the whole day. You wake up in the morning, and you sit down and you watch some typical cartoons on television, and you eat a lot of Christmas cakes, of course. And it's just like the excitement rising up during the day, and then you have the very good Christmas dinner. and the rotten trout and the dug down salmon and we're all at the table so excited, you know, we see all the gifts under the Christmas tree and we can hardly sit So at this point the Nisa has already come you know that?

30:56There's two kinds of gifts, gifts from your relatives and gifts from Nisa Yeah, we have the same sort of thing When do you actually open the gifts? Well, we start dinner at around 5 o 'clock. Lots of relatives, people you haven't seen sometimes for a while. Yeah, and then we open the gifts around 8 or 9. And then we go to bed pretty early, actually, like 11, 11.30. Yeah. And then Christmas Day, the 25th? Well, then we get up early and we have a Christmas breakfast, kind of the leftovers from the day before. Paul Johansen, good jul, and tusen takk for helping us understand a Norwegian Christmas.

31:30Vær så god, god jul og gott nytt år. Merry Christmas and a happy new year. Åje skånets at Christmas, But they still have lots of fun Just the same as you, I enjoy it too Merry Christmas, everyone If you're looking for something different for Christmas this year, wait till you hear about the holidays in Greece and the Basque Country. That's next on Travel with Rick Steves.

32:00Right now, our European holidays take us to Greece. We're joined by Anastasia Gaitanou from Thessaloniki and Dene Kossouri from Athens. Anastasia, Dene, thanks for joining us. Thank you very much. Actually, I should say Merry Christmas in Greece. No, it's Kala Christoujana. And what is that? Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. But, of course, anticipating New Year's Eve, we would also say Happy New Year. Kali Krona. Kali Krona. Krona. Anastasia, when you consider Easter compared to the rest of the Mediterranean, really, Greece is a big deal on Easter. It is. Is Christmas celebrated with the same vigor as Easter?

32:39Not really. I wouldn't say that. Right. Christmas definitely is very important because it's the beginning of everything, if you look at it out of a religious point of view, because without the Nativity of Christ, you wouldn't have Easter. Right. So you have to have the beginning. That's true. With no Christmas, there'd be no Easter. That's the truth. Exactly. but Easter is a culmination of the whole thing, is the peak of the whole celebration because that's the salvation of humankind, again, of the religious point of view. And in a Greek Orthodox style, Easter is the huge festival. It's the huge festival.

33:09On the other hand, Christmas, I think, is mainly a shopping festival and it's also a very good chance that we have to get again together with people we know that we cannot see very often during work days. So it's social, it's family time. It's social, it's family time, gift giving, yes. Whereas Easter would have more time in mass. Both. Both. Both. And Christmas is mainly more for small children as well because of the presents and because of those family reunions. There's a lot of food involved in that. So, Danae, when you were growing up in Athens, tell me sort of the Christmas schedule for the family.

33:49How did the whole time unfold from a child's point of view? Yeah, I was very excited because school was over for two weeks, so I had all the time needed to enjoy as a child. And, of course, it was shopping before Christmas, presents for everybody. Who brings the gifts? Santa Claus brings the gifts. Actually, in Greece is Saint Vassilis who brings the gifts. Saint Vassilis. Yeah. Okay. He was a real personality, actually. Now, do you have Christmas trees? We do. Certainly. And how do you decorate them? Oh, with thousands of Christmas lights and stars and all kinds of toys you can imagine, small, of course, miniatures on the tree.

34:35And Anastasia, I hear that there's a Christmas boat or something also? Yes. Well, Christmas tree is more a Western tradition. And we have been using it for, I don't know, about 100 years, maybe, maybe less. But we did not really have it before the early 19th century. The traditional Christmas decoration is the Christmas boat because Greeks have always been people of the sea. Greece is actually a peninsula. Three sides we have the seas. Wherever you are, you're not really far from that. So it was a boat, always decorated, either with lights or earlier days candles or whatever. Can you still see that when you travel around Greece at Christmas?

35:14Well, if you can see that, yes, in many places you can. And sometimes in the municipality, in the city, like in my city many times they will have a big boat of lights next to the Christmas trees I'm not forgetting our tradition It is, it is Dene, when you are thinking of Christmas what are the traditional holiday foods that you're likely to see? Is it a special menu or is it just the same menu as other days? No, there is a very, very special menu It's a turkey, of course stuffed with meat inside We also have pork which is our favorite made in Greece. And, of course, it's all these delights we have, like the melon macarona and the basilopita, all these sweets.

35:58The melon macarona are small honey pies. Usually they're stuffed with nuts inside and sugar and walnuts, yes, and honey and syrup, and they're amazing. Lots of calories, but believe me, it's worth it. And Anastasia, what are some of the Christmas foods that you have fond memories of when you were growing up? Oh, God, that's really difficult to tell. Everything tastes so great. What always remains in memory, I think we have a lot of recollections of that, is that Vassilopita that Danai mentioned. Pita means pie, in this case is a cake. And Vassilis is Saint Vassilius or Saint Vassilis, who is our Santa Claus.

36:42It is said that because he really existed, He's one of the great fathers of the Orthodox Church, and he existed more or less in the same time period as St. Nicholas. But it is said that once upon a time, they were afraid that the city he lived in would be invaded, and they needed money to organize a defense. So they did not have that money, so he asked all the people to bring their jewelry. So they did that, but they didn't need it, after all, at the end. So he had to give it back to them, but the jewelry was not tagged with names, so he didn't know whom to give it back to. So he had a big cake baked, and he put all the jewelry in it, or small cakes, some say.

37:24And everybody got one of those small cakes then, by chance. Nobody knew what was in it. And it is said it was a miracle, and everybody got his jewelry back. That's the reason why he's the one who brings the presents. So this Christmas cake, as we call it, has a coin. in it. And we always bless it, then we cross it. There is a piece for Jesus, a piece for Mother Mary, for the house, for work. And then everybody around the table gets a piece. And whoever gets the coin has good luck and prosperity for the whole year. Well, that must be part of the fun festivities of Christmas Eve. It's a lot of fun.

38:04Is that Christmas Eve that you do this? No, that is New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve. Okay. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking about Christmas in Greece with Anastasia Gaetano and Danai Koussari. Anastasia, what are some distinctive traditions we might find if we happen to be in Greece during Christmas? There are some traditions that go way back, like, for example, the Greek leprechauns, although they're not necessarily green. But they're supposed to be small and very, very ugly and stink, and they live under the earth and for the whole year. But between Christmas, that's the 25th, that's the Nativity, till the 6th of January, that's baptism, the waters of the rivers or the waters in general have not been baptized yet, which means they're not clean yet.

38:53So in that time period, they find the chance to come out of their whatever layer they're in. These stinky leprechauns. These stinky little leprechauns, yes. And they come out and they make a lot of noise and they cause a lot of trouble. They're not dangerous. I mean, they will not wound you or kill you. But if they come into your house, it'll be a mess after that. So in order to keep them out, because they climb down from the chimney, you know, you have constantly to have fire on. Or you can put some sweets outside your doorstep, hoping that they get the sweets and go away. And this is a whole season that you have to be careful about.

39:28It's 10 days. From when till when? It's from the 25th of December till the 6th of January. OK. Epiphany. Yes, it's Epiphany. So from Christmas until basically what we call the 12 days of Christmas. Exactly. And the tree of life then is, well, tradition says that the whole of earth is on this tree. So what they try to do is sow the tree of life and destroy earth. But they come out during these 12 days. And when they go back, then the tree is whole again. So they have to start all over again. And that goes on every year and every year. The struggle every year with the stinky leprechauns. and deny.

40:03What is one other dimension of a Greek Christmas that might be unique? Well, actually it has to do with New Year's Eve and it's the pomegranate fruit since the ancient time period. In Greece at least it was a sacred fruit. It has a symbolism. Probably because of all these seeds that it has inside. Fertility? Exactly, fertility. But also prosperity. So every year 12 o 'clock after midnight when we have the change and the arrival of the new year we always smash a pomegranate fruit at our doorsteps so the red color from the fruit goes around yeah it's messy but it symbolizes good luck for new year this is the same culture that throws plates against the wall and all these seeds symbolize prosperity for the new year again good luck Great.

41:02Danae and Anastasia, thanks so much for giving us an insight into your culture's holiday festivities. Can you one more time wish us a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year? Good Christmas and a Happy New Year. All right. Thank you very much. A pedestal. Very good.

41:33It wasn't until 1975 that the people of Basque country in northern Spain were able to restore their own special holiday traditions. That was after the end of the Franco dictatorship that had banned all uniquely Basque symbols and traditions. Augustine Sirisa joins us now on Travel with Rick Steves for a look at how his community enjoys the holidays now in Basque country. Augustine, welcome. Thank you. Now, how do you say Happy Christmas in Basque? We would say Sorionac, Itaurte Berrion, saying Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. First of all, Basque culture is partly in France and partly in Spain.

42:09You're from San Sebastian in Spanish Basque country, and Basque is distinct from Spain in so many ways. You've got a language that's not even related to Spanish. How is the Basque Christmas celebration distinct from the Spanish Christmas celebration? We do have a different Santa that we call Olencero. So, Lynch is a figure, is a character that was created 50 years ago, not older than that. He was a man living in the woods, in the forest. He was producing coal in the mountains, and he probably was not very friendly. He was alone, a single man living in the mountains. Well, he had a wife called Maria Domingue, and he would come up for Christmas to bring presents for the kids.

42:54So, he was invented just 50 years ago. Yeah. Why would you create a mythic character just 50 years ago? I would say to face the dictatorship. I mean, since everything was... Ah, this was during Franco's time. True. And Franco was making you be Spanish, and you did not want to raise your children with a Spanish Santa Claus. That's right, that's right. We would have a celebration, Christmas Eve, that we now call Gabongawa, and it was known as Onentero, and this is dated back to the early 16th century. They would celebrate the Christmas time. We had a different religion before Christianism arrived with the Romans to the area.

43:31So it's a kind of a mix of mythology and the celebration itself, since they would celebrate New Year's Day on April with the new springtime. So they started celebrating this kind of transition from that religion called Amalur, Mother Earth, into Catholicism. So the Basque religion before the Roman Catholics or the Christians came was Mother Earth religion. So all over Europe, people incorporate the pagan pre-Christian religions into the modern Christian Christmas celebration. Give a specific example in Basque Country, one part of your ritual that would predate Christianity. Well, on this religion, we would pray for the sun and the four lemons of nature and would have all different kinds of mythological characters, like the most popular one is called Baselian, as the man of the woods, the man of the forest, who would protect the nature and who would try to maintain everything on a good balance.

44:31So there was a sort of a respect for nature and almost an environmentalism worked into your Christmas celebration. Correct. Because nature brought the bounty. Yeah. All the goodness was coming from nature. Now, Basque Country is famous for its food. We go to San Sebastian, your town, and I just want to eat all day long. We've got these, I mean, tapas are fun in Spain, but in Basque Country, gourmet tapas, and in San Sebastian, I think the very best. how do you celebrate from a food point of view the Christmas season? We obviously have a big dinner consisting of different sharing food on the table ham, the traditional Spanish ham is so popular as well out there in my home we would have the white asparagus something light as well the foie gras coming from the southern France will be always on the table the different ham some shellfish like prawns, shrimps and, well, we can afford it to have a lobster as well.

45:26And then we would have either meat and fish. Well, both of them, actually. We would have kind of a transition from the starters to the sir going through fish, like very much, and we usually have the hecks barbells. What is that? They will call them cocoches, so this is the heck barbell. This is this piece of the neck of the heck fish, which is very tender. So the hake fish is a white fish? Yeah. The neck of the white fish is a hake fish. The low part? That's the tasty part. Yeah, very tasty. I think I've had that in just tapas. Probably. In gourmet tapas in a barn in San Sebastian. Probably. Whoa.

46:05And there to go with a piece of meat, usually tenderloin beef meat.

46:14This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with Agustin Tsarita. We're talking about celebrating Christmas time in Basque country. Agustin, you mentioned the man in the woods, the lonely, single, mysterious man in the woods that brings the children the gifts. Tell more about when you're a child in Basque country, how he brings the gifts and when you receive them, and if there's a way that the parents can kind of terrorize the children into being good children instead of bad children. So this person, the Olencheiro, comes on December 24 and brings my Christmas gift. And if I would have behaved improperly, if I would be a bad boy, I would get coal instead of any other.

46:57So your guys have been communicating with our Santa Claus. They do the same thing. Yeah, very similar rituals. Do you open your presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? We do open on Christmas morning. So he comes at night? Yeah, he comes at night. Do you give him some goody before waiting for him to... Yeah, you leave your socks in the room, on the table, or whatever, and then you provide him some kind of snaps and some food. Some snaps? Get him in a good mood. Get him in a good mood and keep going. Now when you think about the general schedule for the Christmassy Christmas Day, can you just walk us through the schedule, how you will do that this Christmas?

47:34For us, it starts a bit earlier, December 21st. That's when we celebrate St. Thomas. We would celebrate St. Thomas as a big popular day. It's kind of the beginning of Christmas for everybody. Everybody returns back home for that day and meets their relatives. And that day everybody's on the street dressed up on their local outfit and they go for eating the local sausage and have apple cider and visit the market. Back in the old days all the workers would get the extra pay, Christmas extra pay so we'll have the money and we'll go to the market to buy the tools to keep working for the next year.

48:12So they would have come into San Sebastian from all the neighborhoods. That would be the big marketplace. Now has become a big pre-Christmas event in which everybody's dressed up on the local outfit and having a good fun and enjoying the market. December 21. December 21. Three days later, we have Christmas Eve and we have this parade in which everybody shows the Olentero on the street and sings to the Olentero to come and be good and generous with the kids.

48:42Then the following day... So this is the man that you've created, the lonely, interesting man from the woods. So you have a parade to the streets, and we're all going to celebrate him, and we've been good, bring us some good gifts. Okay, that's the Christmas Eve parade. That's right. And then we wake up in the morning on Christmas, we open all the gifts, and we have a big meal all together again. So we have a big dinner and then a big meal again. Starters and two mains and a big dessert and a lot of drinks. People are usually having champagne and good wine. And if people go to church, do they go at midnight or in the morning?

49:16The classic, the most popular, was what we call Misa de Gallo, which is translated into the hence mass, and it used to be midnight. But now, since no one is going out after dinner to mass, to church, they have it at 5 p.m., 6 p.m. On Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve. So before the family dinner, you'll go to the mass. Yeah. Okay. And on Christmas Day, 25th, it's mostly just eating more and having more fun with friends. Yep. That's it? That's it. Playing with your toys. Augustin, thank you so much for joining us. And can you one more time say, in Basque Country, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year?

49:52All right. I'll never learn that, but I would like to be in Basque Country sometime on Christmas. Thanks again, Augustin. Thanks to you.

50:32Travel with Rick Steves is produced at Rick Steves Europe in Edmonds, Washington by Tim Tatton, Donna Bardsley, and Kazmierl Hall. Website uploads are by Sherry Quirt and Andrew Wakelin. Promotion support comes from Sheila Gerzoff, and our theme music is by Jerry Frank. You'll find more at ricksteves.com slash radio. Wishing you warm and healthy holidays from all of us at Travel with Rick Steves. Hi, I'm Rick Steves from Travel with Rick Steves. However you say it, Feliz Natal. Sretan Božić. Good Jivla. Feliz Navidad. Kala Hristujena ke Hronja Pola. Nolog Hona. Shonin Vieno Ohta. Chistita Koleda.

51:14Želajevi zdrave i nogu, mnogo kasmet. In zalih and gelukih. Oje Vajnah. Na doni tlaveni. Buo Natale. Our wish for you is for a wonderful Christmas and a holiday season filled with peace and joy.