Paska
14mm by 10mm - Mosaic gold in sterling silver
$220 USD
It's been 5 years since I've managed to be in Greece for Greek Easter, called Paska in Greek, so I was pretty excited last weekend to be here (Greek Easter differs from Catholic and Protestant Easter, usually falling later, though occasionally they coincide). The Greeks have a lot of traditions surrounding Easter, and I was keen to be a part.
The smell of roast meat filled the air as we walked to the party we had been invited to. Devout Greeks eat no meat or meat byproducts, nor fish for the 40 days prior to Easter (called Lent in Catholic and Protestant traditions, but called Megali Tesserakosti, which roughly translates as Great 40 Days), so Greeks tend to roast a whole goat or lamb on Paska to break this "fast". We were greeted with plenty of "Kronia Polla" (Good year), Christos Anesti" (Christ has risen), and "Kalo Paska" (Happy Easter). Our friends were roasting a goat, which I was told came from Akrotiri, an area of the island that is about 8 km away. The eating and drinking began!
As did the egg fights. I am used to this tradition in my family. Much of the point of Easter egg dying in my family was so we could have battles with the eggs. The Greeks traditionally dye their eggs red, the red symbolizing the blood and sacrifice of Christ and the eggs symbolizing the rebirth. I had meant to get some dye, but the usual thing of waiting too long and then the grocery store ran out of dye occurred. The dyes in Canada never seem to achieve the deep red that the Greek dye gets. Luckily our hosts had not procrasinated like I had, so I at least got to have a couple egg fights! Amusingly, they also didn't in fact like hard boiled eggs, but DID like egg fights, so they made loads of these stunning red eggs just to play with them. 
After a large meal, plenty of beer, far too many fire crackers for my taste, and plenty of Greek sunshine, we finished up the day with a visit to out local Beach Bar. And so a Kalo Paska was had.
If you want to see Greece for yourself, there are still spaces available in my Santorini Mosaic Workshop. I can't wait to show the participants this stunning Greek island.
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