What are St. Basil’s Day and St. Nicholas Day?

Christmas Surprise introduces readers briefly to St. Basil’s Day and St. Nicholas Day, holidays celebrated in the Economos family.

For St. Basil’s, we eat the traditional vasilopita, a bread with a coin baked into it.  Whoever finds the coin will have good luck all year. The bread is served to the head of the household first and then in order of age down to the youngest.  That makes it a little complicated when we share the bread with my aunt and uncle’s family, Theos Demetrios is the eldest of that generation and Jennifer is the youngest of ours. – Chapter 24, Christmas Surprise

So what is St. Basil’s Day?  The day commemorates St. Basil the Great (Agios Vasilis), a founder of the Orthodox church.  He is associated with gift-giving, especially to the young or poor.  Traditionally Greeks exchanged gifts on New Year’s Day instead of Christmas.  The tradition continued into the 20^th century, as I remember my grandmother sharing stories of her family exchanging gifts on Jan. 1.

Vasilopita

Basil’s reputation as a gift-giver gave rise to the tradition of eating vasilopita, a bread that is baked with a coin in it.  Whoever finds the coin will have good luck all year.

“Legend has it that tax collectors once overtaxed the people to the extent that they were forced to hand over all their jewelry to the authorities,” the Greek Reporter explains of the tradition.  “Basil declared that this was unjust, and forced the tax collectors to give him the jewelry so that he could return it to the people. Of course, at that point, it was impossible to determine which jewelry belonged to whom. So he came up with the novel idea to bake cakes, with the jewelry placed inside them, and to distribute the cake slices amongst the populace.  Each person received a piece of the cake with jewelry baked inside it, and the riches were thereby distributed back to the people.”

The bread is served to the head of the household first – after a piece is cut for Jesus and another for the Virgin Mary ‒ and then to everyone else in order of age.

Other traditional foods include pork, lamb or beef, or all three, salad, Kalamata olives, rice and vegetables.

St. Nicholas Day

“Food traditions mostly,” I say, still annoyed, “because her family owns a restaurant.  They also do a simplified version of St. Nicholas Day and St. Basil’s Day.” – Chapter 14, Christmas Surprise

St. Nicholas Day is probably the better known of the two holidays.  It is celebrated on Dec. 5 or 6, depending on the country.

Nicholas of Myra was an archbishop who attended the Council of Nicaea.  He is known for two things:  his teachings getting him labeled a heretic in the Orthodox Church and his charity work.  Today, we mostly forget about the heretic label and focus on the his generosity.

He also is the patron saint of Greece.

St. Nicholas Day is celebrated in many countries.  In Holland, he is known as Sinterklaas and he and his companion Black Peter deliver gifts to good children and coal and switches to bad children.  In the American colonies, he became Santa Claus.

In some countries, naughty children are punished not with coal in their stockings but by a person: Krampus in many central European counties, Knecht Ruprecht in Germany, and Père Fouettard in France.

The holiday is when “children are given special cookies, candies, and gifts,” Encyclopedia Britannica explains. “In many places, children leave letters for St. Nicholas and carrots or grass for his donkey or horse. In the morning, they find small presents under their pillows or in the shoes, stockings, or plates they have set out for him. Oranges and chocolate coins are common treats that represent St. Nicholas’s legendary rescue of three impoverished girls by paying their marriage dowries with gold. Candy canes, which have the shape of a bishop’s crosier, are also given.”

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Here’s the 4-1-1

This blog is a companion piece to The Rock Star’s Wife, a series about sex, family, and rock & roll.  The series has elements of chick lit, romance and erotica and is best compared to The Vagina Monologues for its frank talk of sex and its consequences.  The series follows Cassandra from her teenage years into her 40s as she navigates relationships (both romantic and platonic) — all with music playing a prominent roll.

Christmas Surprise features characters from The Rock Star’s Wife series:  Two couples.  One bound for forever.  One living in the moment.  A Christmas they won’t forget.

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