New Years Eve with family

It's another carolling day today.  There are three of these days, Christmas and New Years eve and the eve of the 6th January, Epiphany.

Small children are banging on doors, jangling on their triangles. They sing to us a carol which tells us that St Basil is coming from Kessaria (in Turkey).  It is St Basil who brings presents to the children here not St Nick.

New Zealand and the Pacific islands celebrated New Year 2018 at 1pm Greek time. We watched on the news as fireworks blazed above Auckland and Sydney.  Kiribati and Samoa got a mention as well.  They are islands in the Pacific where the sun rises first every year.

New Year's Eve in Times Square and elsewhere in the world must have gone off without incident .  No breaking news broadcast interrupted our Greek music programme.

We sat and nibbled on roast duck, salmon, pate and pastourmadopita (little pies made from a very spicy cured meat).  We girls drank a bottle of good wine while the men as usual preferred their local barrelled stuff

Just a quiet evening with children and grandchildren and a dog

Mainly we talked and laughed and listened to greek music but around midnight we switched over to the channel showing the Athens celebrations.  Here is the Mayor of Athens with the Acropolis lit up behind him giving us the countdown to midnight

First footer this year was the dog, Junior

We all went out to the balcony and listened to the bells chiming merrily, coming back in right foot first

Young Junior, washed and dried and ready to carry out important duties.  I have no doubt he will bring us good luck all through the coming year

No breaking of pomegranites on the doorstep, no hanging of onions on the door, no banging of heads with a key, no fireworks this year.  We kissed and hugged each other, got on the iphone and sent messages to all and sundry and ate the New Years cake.

With a bottle of fizzy stuff.  We've drunk better but we always manage to finish the bottle no matter its quality.  New Years eve demands bubbly alcohol

Time to cut the cake.  The sign of the cross is traced three times and then the cake is cut as tradition demands, the first slice for the Madonna, the second for the house and fields and then the slices go to each member of the family from eldest to youngest, with careful measurement so the coin goes this year to the youngest of the family.   A happy child (one of them anyway) makes for a happy family

Look, look I got the lucky coin.  There will be more coins in the big loaf of New Years bread today and then cakes will be cut at the school (in a couple of weeks), at work and in every business and association.  These cake cutting festivities can go on till February

We tottered off home around 1.30am.  Happy and laughing we decided to both go in our front door together, right foot first.  Well we got the feet in but we got stuck in the door.  Much laughter and promises to eat much less in 2018 and maybe fit in together next year.

Yeh, right.  Guess what we're doing on New Years Day?  Eating of course.  We are joining the very extended family across on Galatas for barbecued lamb and heaven knows what else.  That family put on a far bigger feast than us. The table-s will be groaning, and so will our stomachs.

Wishing you all a wonderful New Years celebration too, health, always health first, peace and happiness.