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🇬🇷 WHAT’S NEW IN GREECE

🎉 Greece officially recognizes three more local traditions as national heritage, because if we don't document it ourselves, nobody will.

More news from Greece

🧭 Greece is building a mountain-tourism playbook, because not every Greek summer story has to involve sand in places it shouldn’t.

🖼️ Maria Callas has been immortalized on a wall in Kalamata, which feels right because she never did “small presence.”

⚓ Greece just received a new defense frigate, because sometimes “self-care” looks like upgraded hardware in the Aegean.

🥂 MICHELIN Guide Greece expansion finally acknowledges that the country is not just feta and seaside calamari.

✈️ Thessaloniki is boosting cultural tourism by putting a museum where your suitcase trauma lives - bold.

🧳 Greece is widening the short-term rental crackdown in Thessaloniki, because residents would like to live where they work.

🏃 Greece is sprinting past the eurozone average, but the pre-crisis finish line is still… emotionally distant.

⚡ The EU is firmly behind the Greece–Cyprus interconnector, which is a very polite way of saying: “Yes, please keep building that.”

🏦 Greece is out here doing “responsible adult” and paid off €5.3B ahead of schedule.

📊 Asterion grabbed 50% of TotalEnergies’ Greek renewable assets—because apparently we’re diversifying beyond “tan lines” as a national output.

🏗️ European Bank backs Greek construction company's AKTOR first bond offering, betting on infrastructure despite Greece's relationship with construction timelines.

🌲 Greece’s fir forests survived wildfires—only to get taken out by the next villain in the ecosystem season finale 😢 

🌎️ WHAT’S NEW OUTSIDE OF GREECE

🤖 Greek national robotics team gets applause but no funding, because Greece celebrates achievement without investing in it—a national tradition.

More news from outside of Greece

🗳️ Greece is proposing expanded postal voting for the diaspora—because flying home to vote is romantic until you see the ticket price.

📚 He kept learning her culture until it stopped being “Greek to him”—a NYT love story with subtitles and, of course, lamb.

Got a burning question about Greek culture, diaspora life, or that family tradition nobody can explain?

💌 Send it to [email protected] - your question might become next week's featured Q&A.

💎 CULTURAL GEMS

🎶 Kalanda - Greek Christmas Caroling With Triangles and Extortion 

Kalanda is Greece's version of Christmas caroling, except instead of "Silent Night," Greek kids show up at your door bright and early the day before Christmas, New Year's (here’s a cute video from the New year’s kalanda), and Epiphany, banging triangles and singing very specific traditional songs that haven't changed in centuries. The kalanda songs aren't requests—they're more like this is what we are going to do: "Na ta poume?” (“shall we say them?”) they ask, and before really getting an answer they launch into song “First of the month, first of the year”, and always ending in “kai tou xronou" (“also next year”). Kids travel in groups armed with triangles (and with other instruments that might earn them more cash), knock on doors of homes, walk into stores and cafes, and launch into verses about Saint Basil, Christ's birth, etc. Homeowners are expected to reward them with coins or sweets, and refusing is technically allowed but socially awkward enough that most people just pay up. It's cultural preservation disguised as a protection racket, and it works because Greeks can't say no to tradition or children weaponizing it.

What makes kalanda fascinating is that it's survived globalization, smartphones, and the decline of most neighborhood traditions. Greek kids still do this—not everywhere, not as universally as before, but enough that it remains recognizable. The songs are in katharevousa (formal Greek) with vocabulary kids don't fully understand, sung to melodies passed down orally for generations. It's one of those practices that's simultaneously ancient, communal, and weirdly wholesome—kids learning tradition, communities maintaining connection, and everyone agreeing that holidays require ritualized door-knocking with triangles.

🧳 TRAVEL NEWS

🎄 Trikala - Where Greece Goes Full Christmas Theme Park (And Means It)

Trikala is the Thessalian city that decided if Northern Europe gets Christmas markets, Greece deserves an entire theme park called "Mill of the Elves" with bigger lights, louder music, and more elaborate spectacle than anything Finland offers. Every December through early January, this mid-sized city transforms into Greece's Christmas headquarters—Ferris wheels, ice skating, Santa villages, carnival rides, and enough fairy lights to be visible from space.

The Mill of Elves sprawls along the Litheos River with rides for all ages, festive market stalls, multiple Santa encounters, and an ice skating rink where Greeks attempt figure skating with predictable results. But Trikala is more than elves and Christmas chaos. The old Varousi quarter offers Byzantine-era streets for adults needing breaks from carnival chaos. The Tsitsanis Museum honors Vasilis Tsitsanis, the rebetiko legend born here— Trikala birthed both Greece's blues and its Christmas theme park, which is range. Trikala's fortress provides sunset views over the city, especially stunning when Christmas lights illuminate below. The city also quietly became Greece's first "smart city" with bike-sharing and free WiFi, which feels incongruous with elf-themed chaos but proves Trikala contains multitudes.

Trikala's ancient name was Trikke, and it is the birthplace of Asclepius (god of medicine), which means this city has healed people for 3,000 years. But Trikala now is mostly known as the Christmas capital of Greece. The Mill of Elves started modestly and grew into a massive operation drawing hundreds of thousands. It's cultural adaptation in theme park form—Greece taking Western Christmas, adding Greek organizational energy (controlled chaos), and creating something neither traditionally Greek nor typically European.

🔍 Hidden Local Gems

🍴 Varousi quarter tavernas after 9pm - Old town restaurants away from Christmas chaos. Locals eating tsipouro while tourists exhaust themselves at the theme park.

🚴 Trikala's bike lanes early morning - Greece's best cycling infrastructure, empty before 9am. Bike-sharing is free first hour.

☕ Manavika neighborhood cafés on Sunday mornings - Residential area where Trikala locals live actual lives. Traditional kafeneia, no tourists, the Greece outside Christmas spectacle.

🆕 OBSESSIONS 

🧵 A Thread of Silk, a Story of Grace

🍯 Is Greek Honey the Best in the World? A Beekeeper Explains

✨ TRENDING GREEK SOCIAL MEDIA

🧑‍🍳 RECIPE OF THE WEEK

CHRISTOPSOMO

Christopsomo is Greek Christmas bread decorated with a cross and walnuts, spiced with cinnamon and orange, and baked on Christmas Eve to bless the house. The centerpiece of Greek Christmas tables that's more about symbolism than actual eating—though it's delicious enough that people do both, ideally after arguing about who gets the decorative walnut.

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💡 INSPIRATION

😎 GREEK FYI

🇬🇷 Kalikantzaroi are the goblin-ish troublemakers of Greek folklore who supposedly pop up during the Twelve Days of Christmas to cause chaos—until Epiphany sends them back underground like a divine “log off.”

😂 MYTHIC MEMES

That’s it for now: expanding MICHELIN Guides, paying down debt early, and immortalizing divas on walls while debating whether Christmas requires boats or trees or both.Catch you next week for more news, drama and deep dives. 🧿 Stay Greek. [email protected]

🛑 Disclaimer

This newsletter contains humor, satire, and opinions that may not represent all Greeks or that one relative who argues at every family gathering. We aim for accuracy, but verify important details before starting WhatsApp drama. Unsubscribe anytime (but we'll miss you).