Growing up Greek is always a good time, but every Greek's favorite time of the year is Easter. Greek Easter comes with beautiful church services, amazing food and lots of families. It's definitely my favorite time of the year. Here are 10 ways you know that Greek Easter is upon us.
1. Fasting
Say goodbye to meat for 40 days. We all know this is manageable, but the true struggle is when Holy Week comes and real nisteri kicks, and you have to say goodbye to meat, dairy and oil. Peanut butter is your best friend (also Oreos are Holy Week nisteia friendly. Score!).
2. Holy Week
We know the Greek Orthodox Church knows how to do Holy Week. It starts the Saturday before Palm Sunday, and there's a service every day of the week leading up to midnight mass on Saturday, all of which are beautiful and represent something different. Although time-consuming, it becomes a habit of going to church every day during this week because you've never known any other way. You start to enjoy them as you get older since you actually understand the meaning behind the services.
3. For all my ladies, this means picking out your Holy Week outfits.
Picking out your outfits for Holy Week is a necessity. You're going to church, but that doesn't mean you don't want to look on point. We all know it's hard to pick out outfits conservative enough for church (especially on Good Friday to try and avoid any wardrobe malfunctions going under the Epitaphios), yet still make you look good.
4. Food preparation
The house smells better than ever. Yiayia or your mom is cutting spanakopita, pastitsio, and magiritsa (an Easter essential). You want to just stick your entire face in all of the food, but you can't because of nisteia. That is the real struggle — no taste testing during Easter food prep.
5. Having to constantly explain that your Easter is a different day.
Sometimes Orthodox Easter falls on a different day than other Christian churches' Easter. People are wishing you a Happy Easter, and you don't know whether to awkwardly tell them it isn't your Easter yet or just smile and nod.
6. Midnight service
The midnight service is one of the most beautiful services in the orthodox religion, where you all gather around the outside the church and celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. But be careful, there are a lot of candles, and I've smelt burning hair more often than I should have.
7. The infamous lamb
I love waking up on Easter Sunday and smelling the lamb already roasting on the spit in my backyard. No one understands just how important the lamb is beside fellow Greeks. A lot of your non-Greek friends think it's weird and gross, but you love it and proudly post your roasting lamb on social media.
8. Family
The whole family comes to town to celebrate Easter, and you couldn't be happier to spend this beautiful holiday with them. You look forward to it all year.
9. Red eggs
All the eggs you dye aren't the typical pastel colors; the tradition says they must be dyed red. You try your best to beat Yiayia at the egg-cracking "game," but you never can.
10. Food coma
All that fasting made you eat absolutely everything in sight, and you didn't stop until literally you felt like your pants button was going to pop off — and that was the only dinner. Wait 'til dessert. Yiayia will be back to shove more food down your throat!
Kali Anastasi to all my fellow Greeks!
