Apokries 2011~ Clean Monday

Cute isn't she? This was the first of many hats and masks that she would bring home from school during Apokries/carnival season, which has kept us busy for the last few weeks. 

 My little bird says, "Chiou, chiou." 

I'm on the PTA/syllogo at Alexandra's school and we made soutzoukakia sandwiches for the children on Tsiknopempti or "Charred Thursday." Tskinopempti is the beginning of Apokries/Carnival in Greece.  Each sandwich consisted of 2 small soutzoukakia  and fries. We served the children at around 11:00am because many of them are finished with their day by noon. Alexandra is always thrilled when I'm at school helping with these events. What's really cute is that a lot of the children refer to me as "Ms. Alexandra" because they don't know my name but they know that I'm her mother. 

She had a wonderful time. 

One week later we had a costume party to attend. The kids were so excited and  I have to say that shopping for new costumes this year was a lot of fun. Alexandra was an angel, Foti a ninja, Izabella was Hannah Montana(again), and I wore a festive hat that Alexandra selected especially for me. 

At the party. 

There was a clown that entertained the children for a few hours. Here's Alexandra with her "weiner." 

By the end of the night, the balloons lost their cool shapes...somehow. 

So the costume party was over and we had the weekend ahead. This year we didn't go to Kozani or anywhere to see a parade. The weather forecast  for the weekend was cold and snowy so we decided to stay close to home. 

And the forecast for Clean Monday/Katheri Deftera was even less promising.  

The morning was dreary and gray. I started cooking the traditional  bean soup, fasolada, early so that it would be ready and warm when we returned from flying our kites. It's tradition to fly kites on Clean Monday and you can usually look up and see kites in the air everywhere throughout the day-which wasn't the case in our area this year. Since we didn't fly kites last year because of the snow and cold we experienced in Kozani, we promised the kids that nothing would keep us from going out this year.

As soon as we left the house to fly our kites it started to rain, then snow and then it rained again. But it didn't matter, we were going to stick with our plans. So, we drove to a beach nearby and found a nice open area, which was easy since there was only one other family at that location braving the cold weather, it was very quiet. I have to admit that this was the first time in my life that I flew a kite on a beach over the water. Very cool, except when you see your kite going down! Luckily, we were able to maneuver our kites away from the sea a few times and I'm happy to report that none of them took a dive. 

Alexandra flying her kite. 

 It's the first time she managed to keep one up on her own. 

Foti is always totally into it. I bought him a new kite this year and he couldn't wait to fly it.  

Although we managed to keep this one up in the air for a bit, we were mostly disappointed by its performance. 

His old- but trusty Spider-man kite flew much better. 

Foti flying his Spider-man kite. 

 Here's a shot of Izabella flying her Dora kite. She's had this one since she was two years old. It's still flying strong, even in the rain & snow. 

Izabella taking a break from the wind and snow. 

It did get very cold and after about an hour of fun we were frozen so we packed up and went home where I immediately served hot chocolate and coffee, a perfect way to warm up. And since everyone was hungry it was time for lunch. 

I served lagana, which is traditionally served on only one day each year...Clean Monday. 

Here's the fasolada I made. I've used Maria's recipe for the last few years and the kids love it. It's just as delicious as it looks. 

We also had olives and a side of  "paprika" to spread on our lagana. 

And finally, Makedonikos Halvas. 

Izabella dips her lagana into her fasolada. 

After lunch we lit a fire and relaxed- watching the wicked weather outside while staying cozy and warm inside.  This was one of the the quietest Apokries seasons that we've had since living in Greece and it was wonderful. Kali Sarakosti.

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~Kyra Sarakosti~

Alexandra's Kyra Sarakosti  ~with no mouth which represents fasting, her hands are crossed in prayer and she has seven feet to represent the seven weeks of Lent. A foot is removed after each Saturday that passes until Easter. 

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A little more of last weekend

Holy Lagana! We passed this piece of art on our way to our first neighborhood bonfire(fanoi-you'll need to scroll down the page to "culture" for info). I was a little disappointed that I didn't get a better photo! As you can imagine, I squeezed through a group of people to get this one.

Our first bonfire...

The second bonfire that we went to was conveniently located just below a friend's home. We saw people dancing on their balcony and just had to pop in. It was a lot of fun watching and listening to the party below. There's a lot of sexual satire chanted and repeated at the fanoi- hilarious I think. One man kept putting his mobile phone up to a speaker so that whoever was on the other end wasn't missing out on the fun.
We went to a third bonfire but I didn't get any photos as I was too busy dancing. My husband says that it's tradition to visit an odd number of neighborhood bonfires so we went to 3.

Two party goers having a blast. It's funny to see just how many men are dressed as women at carnival. It's so fun!

Finally, "Clean Monday". We went to a picnic outside of town and the kids got to fly their kites. We didn't get any food though! By the time we got to the actual picnic all of the food was gone as the crowd much bigger than anticipated. But, that's ok. Kosta's Theo Tasos(uncle) was there and ended up dragging us back to his place to eat instead. He and his wife served us lagana, bean soup (fassolatha), grilled octopus, cucumber/tomato salad, olives, taramosalata, halvas and horta-all very traditional foods for Clean Monday. We enjoyed our visit and then headed home. We were all pretty exhausted and couldn't wait to get there!