Christmases Remembered

TNH staff

WARTIME: 1945 The first one I often relate is the Christmas of 1945. I was then an 11-year-old orphan; my mother died suddenly that August at the young age of 39. The youngest of four, my father arranged for me to go with my cousin Elisavet to the village of Koilada for the holidays. Our theia [aunt: my mother’s sister] Kitsa sent Elisavet, herself a teenager, to help my 12-year-old sister Efi, who had to quit school to care for the five of us. It was a bitter cold winter. Maybe we did not have money for a bus, or perhaps there were no buses; what I remember is that we traveled on the back of an open truck.

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December 21, 2011