by Hellianna Pappamichalis

hristmas cards: two English words with Greek origin. The word “Christmas” comes from the Greek word “Χριστός” which means “the chosen one” whereas the word “card” comes  from the word “χάρτης”which means a layer of papyrus in ancient Greek.

These two words came together and became a bright and festive Christmas symbol in 1843 England-the Christmas card. Its designer  and  godfather was a public servant, Henry Cole. Mr Cole had undertaken the organising of the Public Post Office but he also created one product that even the poor could afford to post.

That Christmas, about 1000 cards were sold. All of them had the same three pictures printed on: Christians helping the poor and in the centre of the card, a family enjoying a rich dinner! If you happen to own one of those cards today, you could sell it for thousands of pounds!

Soon, sending Christmas cards became popular all over Europe. The most common pictures printed on them were the Nativity, children,  snowy landscapes and the robin. The first mass producer of Christmas cards started its business–where else but- in America at the beginning of  the 20^th century.

At the same time, a postman in Denmark thought of using  Christmas cards for charities. Today in England, 580 million pounds are raised for charities thanks to Christmas cards sales.

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source:

http://www.whychristmas.com/customs/cards.shtml

by Nick Alexiou

The English word ‘chimney’ comes from the Greek word ‘κάμινος’ which originally meant a furnace, an oven.

In England, at Christmas everybody relates Santa Claus to chimneys. Through the chimney Santa reaches the fireplace and puts the presents under the Christmas tree. When his job is completed, he climbs up the chimney again to the roof top. But Santa can have a bit of a problem with chimneys too. If a chimney is wide enough, he can slide down with ease, but if it is too narrow, he might get stuck because –well- he is a bit overweight.

Christmas in Greece is related with goblins (kalikantzaroi). These goblins crawl up from the centre of the earth on Christmas Eve and leave again on January 6.At night , they try to sneak into the houses through the chimneys ! If they succeed, they will destroy the Christmas decorations, eat all the candy and desserts and play all kinds of nasty tricks on people. They love to roll in the ashes  that’s why the lady of the house must keep the fireplace clean and a good fire always burning to keep the goblins away. It is said that, they are horribly ugly and they use the chimneys to look like Santa because they envy him.

In England too, chimneys and  fireplaces must also be swept clean, so Santa won’t get dirty or his uniform  get black. Fireplaces are decorated so that Santa  feels welcome. Usually people leave cookies and milk under the Christmas tree, but others leave them in the fireplace .In Ireland,   they leave beer and bacon rolls for Santa.

In the USA, Christmas chimneys are decorated both inside and outside. They are colourful with a lot of Christmas lights and Christmas stockings  on the mantelpiece. Under the tree, children leave pumpkin pie, chocolate chip cookies and a glass of low fat milk so Santa doesn’t get fat. Some people put popcorn chains inside the chimneys and they make marshmallow cookie ropes for Santa to come down the chimney safe!

And here’s a song that tells it all!

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Sources:

http://www.theholidayspot.com/christmas/chimney_sweep.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Christmas#Current_folklore

βλ.Ν.Γ.Πολίτης,Οι παραδόσεις του Ελληνικού λαού,ΤΟ ΒΗΜΑ 2015