Our Big Fat Greek Easter

Easter is always the biggest holiday in the Greek Orthodox calendar, but this year we celebrated the best Greek Easter ever, because it brought together grandchildren from both coasts for a week of fun and adventures and getting to know each other.

Here's the crew--left to right: Stone Suire age 3 1/2 and his sister Eleni, 1, Nicolas Baltodano, 4, baby Gage Antonia Hineline--four months old and meeting her cousins for the first time-- and Amalia Baltodano, age 7.  Stone and Baby Eleni belong to Frosso, the daughter of "Big Eleni" Nikolaides,  who has lived with us for 40-plus years. Nico and Amalia belong to our daughter Eleni, and Baby Gage is the firstborn of daughter Marina, so they'll all grow up together, we hope,  as loving cousins.

Even though they were too little to join the egg hunt in the front yard, these two stole the show.

Eleni and her kids got to Grafton, MA, Friday night, (Emilio flew in later) and on Saturday they ventured to the Hebert Candy Mansion to see the Easter Bunny.  Amalia's expression is meant to signal that she is highly suspicious of the identity of the Easter Bunny, but I warned her not to say anything that would make the Bunny feel bad, as well as the crowd of little kids waiting in line, and she complied.  After the bunny, we got sundaes at the make-your-own sundaes bar.

On April 21, Eleni and Papou Nick went to church for Greek Palm Sunday and then we had carrot cake with one candle for Baby Eleni and four candles for Nico (he's lower left, behind Amalia), both of whom had recent birthdays.

That day was when Amalia began making Easter eggs with the "Egg-Mazing Egg Decorator" to use as place cards for all 23 people who would join us the next Sunday for Greek Easter.  (This year it fell a week after Catholic Easter.  The two Easters are sometimes on the same day, or as much as a month apart.) Amalia worked all week, customizing the eggs by asking everyone's favorite colors.

On Wednesday we all went to church for Holy Unction, which involves the priest putting holy oil on your eyes, mouth and hands, so that you will see, say and do beautiful things instead of bad ones.  "Does this mean I can't say 'Poop' any more?" worried Nico, referring to his favorite dirty word.

On Thursday we went to nearby Green Hill Farm,  a (free) petting zoo, and everyone met peacocks, llamas, goats, exotic fowl, miniature donkeys and horses and very fluffy sheep.

On Good Friday, daughter Eleni and "Big Eleni" Nikolaides prepared the traditional red eggs, making patterns on them with flowers and leaves held in place by pieces of panty hose wrapped around and tied with dental floss before the eggs are put in the dye.  After they're taken out and cooled, the eggs are rubbed with oil to make them shine.  The photo at right combines the red eggs with Amalia's striped ones.

On Holy Saturday everyone hurries to church for the "First Resurrection" after having fasted throughout Holy Week (or, for the very devout, for the seven weeks of Lent.  The priests at St. Spyridon Cathedral in Worcester dramatize the joy of the moment by tossing bay leaves everywhere (which Nico tried to pick up) and giving out hand bells to ring (when the priest said so.). Then we all gathered at an IHOP to order  the kind of breakfasts we've been forbidden until now--but no meat until after midnight.

Despite all the Easter preparation, these three moms, Frosso, Eleni and Marina, managed to complete this puzzle of Great Americans in time to photograph it, then clear it up to set the kids' table for tomorrow.  Eleni and her father went to the midnight resurrection service, then came home to crack red eggs, saying "Christ is Risen!" "Indeed He is Risen!" and eat the traditional Mayeritsa soup.  While everyone slept, the Easter bunny hid more than 150 eggs in the front yard and filled the five  large Easter baskets with goodies (as well as five smaller baskets for the kids coming tomorrow.)

Finally it was Easter Sunday!  Amalia found the golden egg on top of a pot of pansies.  Then Tia Marina helped everyone open the eggs to discover what was inside.

Next everyone checked out their Easter baskets.  Yiayia Eleni pointed granddaughter Eleni to hers.   Nico admired his new disco cup (it flashes) and Amalia tried her new stick-on nails, while Marina and Baby Gage watched from the sidelines.

It was time to go to church for the Agape service followed by another egg hunt, this one in the church auditorium.  St. Spyridon's was so crowded that we were sent upstairs to the choir loft, where we got a beautiful view of the congregation below, with everyone trying to keep their candles lit to take home.  The patriarch of the family uses his flame to mark another cross on the top of the house's door.  Amalia kept hers lit too, a tradition that always makes me nervous, waiting for the odor of singed hair.  (Children get fancy decorated candles, called "Lambadas" at Easter, from their godparents.)

Back home the table for adults was set in the dining room.  Amalia was thrilled to hear that she was going to be the boss of the kids' table in the living room (because she was three years older than anybody else.) She even wrote down a speech which began, "Hello, I'm Amalia and I'm the boss of the kids' table.  If you have a problem, come to me.  If you get bored, there is a paper with instructions and a coloring sheet..."

Then the feasting began: lamb, of course, spinach pie, chicken and rice pita, giant beans, Marina's special salad and so much more, ending with a dome-shaped Princess Torte from Crown Bakery. The party went on until Eleni and family had to leave for New York.  Marina and Baby Gage flew out to San Francisco the next day, leaving two grandparents grateful for this best Easter ever, and hoping that we will all come together again as the little ones grow, to make more Easter memories.

A Grandmother Kvelling

  

I belonged for many years to a woman’s group in Worcester that met once a month to discuss a pre-selected topic.  There were a few topics that were verboten, however:  politics, pets and grandchildren.

I can see why.  Nothing empties a room faster than an approaching Grandma clutching a brag book of grandchildren photos.  The clever antics of another person’s grandchild are just about as interesting a conversational topic as the  details of one’s recent operation.

That said, permit me to rhapsodize a bit about my granddaughter Amalía.  No, she did not get into an Ivy League school, nor did she play Moonlight Sonata in a piano recital.    She did not learn to ride a bike or even become toilet-trained.  She can’t even sit up.  Her latest achievement is managing (sometimes) to get her thumb into her mouth.

Amalia is eight weeks old today. (But officially two months old on Oct. 26, when she’ll go to the pediatrician for a check-up.)

Even though she can’t even sit up by herself, it’s a wonder and a delight to me to watch her discovering the world around her (including her hands and her reflection in a mirror.)  I think I was too tired to savor this stage of development in my own children. 

She sits (or lies) there, wearing one of her pre-Halloween outfits and with great seriousness watches the fascinating and puzzling world around her, looking to me as if she has some memory of where she was before and is now trying to learn the secrets of this new place. 

This thought led me to look up some of William Wordsworth’s lines in “Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood”:

         Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
          The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
              Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
                And cometh from afar:  
                  Not in entire forgetfulness,      
             And not in utter nakedness,
             But trailing clouds of glory do we come
              From God, who is our home:
        Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

 That's how Amalía seems to me as she studies her new world--she came to us trailing clouds of glory.

She also reminds me of “New Soul” by the Israeli singer Yael Naim, a song that Amalia’s parents, Eleni and Emilio, included in her birth mix— to be played  during  labor and delivery:

I'm a new soul

I came to this strange world

Hoping I could learn a bit 'bout how to give and take

 On Sunday October 9, daughter Eleni and her husband Emilio took Amalia to the Greek Orthodox church in Miami, Saint Sophia, for the ritual that marks her 40^th day of life and introduces her to the church.  The priest says a blessing both for the mother and for the baby.

As Eleni pointed out in “Fabulous at Forty (Days)” –posted on her blog,  “The Liminal Stage”, many societies believe that the 40 days after birth are a special time when mother and baby should stay together indoors until the child is taken out on the 40^th day. She mentions Judaism, Chinese culture, and Yogis among others.  As Eleni writes on her blog,

“Like all rituals, there’s the liturgical explanation for the 40-day churching (we bring our babies to be presented at the Church the way Mary brought Jesus to the Temple), and then there’s all the folklore that rises up around it. …As with so many folk customs, this one crosses boundaries and spans multiple cultures.”

Amalia wore a beautiful dress for her first visit to church, and the brief ritual and blessing seemed a perfect way to mark her passage from the first 40 days of infancy to an individual ready to take her place in the church and the world.

Eleni summed it up in her blog post:

My favorite part of the entire experience was when the priest said, “Bless also this child which has been born of her; increase her, sanctify her, give her understanding and a prudent and virtuous mind.” I felt a thrill at that moment thinking of the little baby in front of me as a person with a developing mind, one which, God willing, will be prudent and virtuous and joyous and expansive, and all the things that mothers in all cultures wish for their baby.

Planning a Wedding in Corfu

When we landed in Corfu last week, daughter Eleni was off and running to get her wedding plans together. She had informed us, about two weeks earlier, that she planned to marry Emilio in Corfu, Greece, on Oct 10 (10/10/10!) and she had already cleared the date with the church she had always dreamed of –the little peach-colored Church of Panayia Mandrakina at the base of the Fortress in Corfu Town. (That’s Eleni looking at the church above.)

She arrived with a list, which included checking out the reception site, priests, florists, DJs, musicians, cake-bakers, transportation (including horse-drawn carriages and boats) and the venues for the various nights’ activities.

Her sister Marina had already designed the logo that will mark the paperwork, (intertwined E’s for "Emilio" and "Eleni") as well as the invitations, response cards and thank-you notes, and had also assembled spread sheets of guest lists and addresses.

Within four days, everything pretty much got nailed down. I don’t want to give away all the surprises, but can tell the general plan. On Friday night, Oct 8, there will be the decorating of the wedding bed—in a fortress-view suite at the top of a small Italian mansion—now a boutique hotel-- in the old city. (Most of the guests at the wedding will be staying in garden rooms at the Corfu Palace, overlooking the harbor below.)

Traditionally for a Greek wedding the women decorate the nuptial bed with flowers and gold coins, while singing songs sure to bring tears of nostalgia to Eleni’s aunts.



Saturday, the welcome dinner–hosted by the groom and his family—will be held on a magical small island called Vidos. A boat covers the ten-minute ride from the Old Port every hour, and the captain plans to decorate his boat to honor the bride and groom. He can’t wait. Every Greek loves a wedding!

That includes Menios, the wisecracking owner of the taverna on the island, who had strong opinions about the traditional Corfiote dishes he will prepare and the singers who will provide the music for Saturday night. We should leave everything in his hands, he said.

Eleni asked for a meatless main-dish alternative for vegetarians—perhaps tomatoes and peppers stuffed with a herbed rice mixture. Menios retorted that upon tasting meatless yemista, the guests would throw the tomatoes and peppers at his head. He had a reputation to uphold! In the end, Eleni and the vegetarians won, I think.

The island of Vidos is like something out of a fairy tale. It’s completely overrun with rabbits and hares as well as pheasants—all of whom have become tame and will walk right up to you. Every night about sunset Menios makes a ritual of throwing feed to the hundreds of animals who drop by for dinner.



Sunday—the wedding day—will include two weddings—one in the Catholic Church (the Duomo) in the picturesque square which includes the Town Hall and the Opera House, followed by a parade with troubadours toward the Greek Orthodox Church for a second ceremony. (Guests who want to take a break or can’t fit into the churches are encouraged to sit at an outdoor café nearby with a celebratory drink.)

[To avert bringing on the Evil Eye, Eleni wants me to qualify all this by adding the words “weather permitting.” And I should spit a couple of times and keep a clove of garlic in my pocket.]

After the ceremonies finish and photographs are taken, everyone will file across the bridge over the moat into the old fortress and through the winding cobblestone paths down to the Corfu Sailing Club on the water’s edge, where sailboats and yachts are anchored and the lights from above shimmer in the water.

At the Sailing Club there will be music, toasts, delicious food and several surprises, but I promised not to tell.

When meeting with vendors, I learned that the Mother of the Bride has only one important job and that is “Don’t say anything and don’t engage anyone in conversation.” Eleni and her cousin Areti, a Corfu native who will be the maid of honor and koumbara of the wedding—have their own system for interviewing and negotiating, and it was clear that I could seriously mess things up by expressing an opinion or showing interest in anything.

Being a MOB is no easy task.

My husband likes to quote a friend who commented after one festive weekend: “The average Greek has more fun at a wedding than the average WASP has in a lifetime.”

I’m a life-long WASP, now transformed into a Greek MOB, and I suspect that on 10/10/10 I’ll find out if that’s true.