How people celebrate Christmas in other countries!

Sorry I didn't post yesterday, I was sick. So this post will be about how people celebrate Christmas in other countries, specifically Greece because that is where my parents are from.
So in Greece, they go to church on Christmas day. They don't get to open their Christmas presents until January first, usually at midnight when the year changes. The gift-giving is primarily only for the kids. The kids also don't believe in Santa Clause.  They believe that Saint Basil brings them presents.
The story goes that there was a bad emperor that had taxed his people a lot. So much that people were struggling to survive. So Saint Basil took all of the taxes (he had somehow managed to find them) and he didn't know to whom to give them to. So he baked a pie and put all of the jewelry and coins in it. He gave each person a piece and everybody got back the amount of money and jewelry the emperor had stolen from them. And that tradition continues on today. Greek families like mine will either bake or buy a pie and put a coin in it. Then they cut the cake on New Year's eve and whoever gets the coin is considered lucky for the rest of the year.

The History of Candy Canes

So because the holidays are coming up, I decided to write about candy canes. I couldn't find a source that wasn't very vague about when candy canes were made except for Wikipedia, so my source today is Wikipedia (sadly). 

There is this old tale that there was a choirmaster in Germany, that decided the only way to keep kids quiet in church was to have them eat candy. He made the candy though bent, to represent the shepherds that visited baby Jesus. 

In the beginning, candy canes were being made by hand (1870s to early 1920s). The candy cane was being associated to Christmas by then because of stories like the one in the beginning. Then around the early 1920s, a candy cane machine was patented. So now whenever you eat candy canes you can think about all of that amazing history behind what you are eating. 

I am sooooo sorry that I did not post on Thursday, but I am finding that Saturdays work better with me for posting so from now on all posts will come out on Saturdays. Bye! (BTW the post that is coming out will be coming out on Sunday, sorry for the one day/4 days delay!)

The Life of Maria Callas

Maria Callas

Maria Callas was an opera singer in the 1900s.
Maria Callas was born on December 2, 1923, in New York City. Her parents were Greek immigrants Evangelia and George Callas.
Callas debut at the Royal Opera of Athens in 1941. She married Giovanni Meneghini in 1949. They split in the 1960s. Maria Callas was a big opera diva. She was extremely famous and she had a big temper.
She died in September 1977 at her home in Paris because of a heart attack.