First Christmas tree in Greece and the custom of Eiressioni

The first Christmas tree in Greece was King’s George fir, in 1834. It was decorated out of his house in Nafplio. It was a very strange spectacle for local people, because it was the first time that they saw something like this. When Othonas moved to Athens, a Christmas tree was decorated outside of his palace, downtown. More people came and admired the Christmas tree with colorful decorations and Christmas lights. Despite admiration and curiosity, none of them took a Christmas tree for themselves. The first civilian that decorated a Christmas tree was the diplomat Ioannis Paparigopoulos in 1843. He bought decorations from Russia. The Christmas tree entered Greek houses after World War 2. Until then, Greeks in coastal areas used to decorate a small wooden ship in honor of sailors and captains.

Trees were sacred in ancient Greece. The most important was the olive tree, which was evergreen. In ancient Greece, they used to decorate a branch of the olive tree, Eiressioni, like we do nowadays decorating the Christmas tree. According to Mythology, Eiressioni was the offering Thiseas made in Delos to god Apollo, during his trip through Crete. He promised to Apollo that if he could survive and return safely to Athens, he would offer to god decorated branches from wild olive trees.

Since then, in the last days of September, in Athens, children that both of their parents were alive, used to go from house to house singing a song dedicated to Eiressioni. They brought a branch of olive tree –many researchers believe that this branch came from Athina’s sacred olive trees. The branch was decorated with fall nuts and fruits, like figs, almonds, walnuts, pomegranates  and with red or white sheep wool. After they visited a lot of houses, they returned back to their homes and  hung an Eiressioni branch above the front door, because they believed that this branch would bring to their home good luck and fertility. The branch stayed there until next year, when they burned it and replaced it with a new one.

 

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