Before Christmas, in Ayii Vavatsinias housewives start reparations for Christmas.
Preparations include cleaning the house, dusting, shining, arranging furniture, baking rusks, and painting the inner and outer walls white.
On Christmas Day, people go to church. After Divine Service, people receive communion, which is known in the Cypriot dialect as “paskazo”. After Service is over, people exchange wishes.
After church people go home and gather around the table in a happy, family atmosphere to eat turkey and soup or “traxana” soup, which is a traditional dish.
Years ago, around 15 days before Christmas people used to butcher pigs to make bacon, ham and sausages. They made salted pork and “zelatina”. The rest of the meat was cooked and along with fat was kept in “koumnia” which are special containers made of clay. In this way, they had food for a long time.
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