Go ahead, admit it. We’re strange. Our neighbors think we slaughter animals in our basements and believe we are members of a secret society when they see us pulling up in our driveway in the middle of the night holding lit candles.
Here are some tell-tale signs that YOU are Greek… The Easter edition. Feel free to add your own at the end of the story in the comments.
1) You can masterfully drive and balance an open flame in your car…
2) Somewhere on your house, you have the number of crosses burned representing the number of Easters since painting your home last…
3) There is absolutely nothing wrong with opening your refrigerator and finding a whole lamb carcass… excuse me while I grab some milk… (Photo courtesy of Steve Livaditis)
4) You find it perfectly normal to wrap feet and feet of lamb intestines and animal organs that most humans wouldn’t find fit for human consumption.
5) And add it to your barbecue
6) And whatever bits and pieces are left, you make soup out of it… but never tell your “American” friends what’s in it.
7) Your call “their” holiday “American” Easter, as if you are from another country or planet. Oh, and you’ve never worn an Easter bonnet or run around a field looking for colored eggs like the “Amerikanakia.”
8) Most of the civilized world prays for Christian unity so East and West can celebrate Easter on the same day. But you don’t, taking particular joy in your candy being half-off after “American” Easter has passed.
9) You feel a bit guilty and radical dying an egg or two anything BUT red.
10) And even though your mom tells you to always wear gloves, you never do (Photo courtesy of Leah Michalos via Instagram).
11) Speaking of eggs, you’ve had one cracked on your head, usually by a big bullying brother, and you are devastated when THIS happens…
12) You find it perfectly “normal” to take a selfie with a poor helpless dead lamb that is roasting on a spit… (Photos courtesy of Staz Tsiavos and Brina Karnava, respectively)
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28 comments
" Love it . . . 🙂 "
Xristos Anesti!
Xristos Anesti – its all so true!
This is hysterical !
Too true and hilarious
HYSTERICAL….. THIS WAS GOOD
love your coments, been there done that.
Hilarious! Also, ever try to explain to one of those American friends what the ingredients are in Mageritsa?? “Did you say lamb intestines???”
When you get home from the midnight service you out a sign on the "winning egg" that says "Don't Eat" so you can take it back to the Glendi to challenge others.
Yeah – we went to church – home after Midnight with lit candles in the car. All the Greeks do it in America – we are not in Greece to light fireworks, etc. We then make the sign of the cross on the ceiling – eat mageritsa, (won’t tell you what kind of soup), then we hit red eggs to see who’s will break, roast lamb, sing, dance, enjoy family – for what? BECAUSE HE WHO SAVED US IS RISEN! CHRISTOS ANESTI – HE HAS RISEN!
As a child, you’ve intentionally burnt other people’s hair in church without their knowing. And then were smacked upside the head by some unrelated adult for doing so. lol
Or you are “baptising a dog in a garbage can with “a friend” using his camera as a thimiato, right Greg?
Christos Anesti, think you have it down pretty good!
How about — during marathon church services — hunched over so your parents can’t see it — when you and your siblings amused yourselves by dripping hot wax droplets off your Anastasi candles onto your hands? My brothers and I claimed we had gotten fake measles, but it got us through the night…. as the half-dozen psaltis droned on.
hilarious! I can deal with everything but the attached head on the whole lamb……….
What used to get me was the putsa Greek Easter soup. With the lamb,s head and eye balls in it.
You are being silly and obnoxious! Shame on you.
OMG! This is HYSTERICAL. So true, So true. A friend asked me how I cook Lamb and said I only know how on an open Spit in the yard. Don't recommend it in Neighborhoods as those in the area think you've killed a dog. My Uncles used to fight over who got to eat the eyeballs. YUCK!
Five years ago my back yard neighbor called the Fire department as I was lighting my charcoal.
Protestants take you literally when you say you
fast for 40 days and don’t understand how anyone can go without food for that long..AND think you’re a radical form of evangelicals when we are in church Monday thru Sunday @ , multiple times of the day….
LOL..Or when your aunts try stuffing your face with margaritsa and kokoretsi, at 3am, after church! Christos Anesti!
Your fingers are red after taking the shell off…..
Absolutely true!
Xristos Anesti!
I am not down with the lamb thing. What a cruel custom, i hate it.
What do you mean, “not down with the lamb thing. What a cruel custom…”!? Lamb are raised for food, like cows, pigs, chickens, etc…
Elena do you feel bad for tiger turkey on thanksgiving too?
We used to dig a pit in the yard to light a fire and skewer a whole lamb on a spit with a hand crank. My dad cut 2 Y shaped tree limbs to hold the spit as we ALL took turns rotating it. We not only lived in a neighborhood but our house was on a corner with a stop sign so everyone could see the whole yard. Cars would slow down even more to get a glimpse of “What the heck IS that?” Walkers and bike riders could not stop staring as they went by. Well, with the fire, the lamb with its tongue hanging out, delicious aromas, Greek music playing… who wouldn’t stare? My dad, a sister, 3 brothers and their widowed mother. Each of the siblings had a spouse and each of the 5 couples had 3 children, are you counting? That’s a Γιαγια (grandmother), ten θιες (aunts) and θιος (uncles), and 15 cousins. Twenty-six loud, laughing, dancing and singing Greeks! Celebrating the resurrection of Christ and the joy of family together again as the last brother and sister had finally immigrated with their families to America. Some of us meeting for the first time and others reuniting after too many years apart– Thanks for the memories! Χριστος Ανεστι!
On the contrary, we love getting Easter candy on sale. We’re cheap Greeks who love a good deal!