Alexandros Moraitidis (1850-1929) preferred the holiday of Christmas, judging by the number of stories he dedicated to it, certainly more than Easter ones. Tellos Agras also pointed this out when he explained that Christmas was “the greatest newspaper festival” when “literature was the flesh of journalism” (Critique, III, Ermis, 1984, p. 79). Moraitidis’ preference for Christmas was not theological but emotional. He himself admits this: “Christmas night has always had a special effect on my nervous system” (“Ta digimata”, I, p. 44, I mean the three-volume edition edited by Nikos D. Triantafyllopoulos, Knowledge -Moment, 1990- 1993). Christmas is associated with him with the warmth of a lit hearth in his father’s childhood home, with a blazing fire in the dead of winter, with the boiling of a kettle, “that saddest song of the family” (A΄, 48) and roasted hops (A΄, 147). He always misses a lit fireplace: “I wished nothing more ardently in my long life of staying or finding a hearth than to sit in the spiraling movements of its flame and from time to time burn as many failed plans as useless papers! (A’, 54).

Moraitidis’ most beautiful Christmas story, or rather, the one that I like the most, is “Christmas in a Dream” (1898, B΄, 173-194). The writer and storyteller lives in Athens “without fire in the hearth and without hope in the heart” (A΄, 95), and, as if this were not enough, the new Metropolitan of Athens decided to cancel the Christmas night service, which is why the bells of the Taxiarch Church in Aerides on that Haven’t called at 2am in a year. The narrator lost his temper while waiting for them to signal, and when they finally signaled at dawn, he found their sound mournful. He didn’t go to church. Christmas without a night procession is not Christmas. “I felt like I didn’t celebrate Christmas that year. All day I was depressed and sad ”(B΄, 173). Let us understand this lover of formal orders when he is so angry with the metropolitan: “A pale despot, as if dead, with a dull look, as with a dead face, and with an already faded voice, as with a dead voice. Of course, with a dead heart” (B΄, 175). On this melancholy day, he will receive an unexpected invitation from his second cousin Papadiamantis to go to a friend’s house, where a Christmas dinner will be offered. Although he reluctantly agrees because Papadiamantis promises him that they will sing the hymns of the holiday. The owner, Mr. Stratis, is also the cantor of the cemetery.

They are associated with him with the warmth of a burning hearth in the parental home of his childhood.

At dinner, things take a different turn for the narrator. On one wall, he sees a sign with a hut, on the other, mourning wreaths, and the owner, clinking his glass, wishes “health to the deceased.” He is surrounded by a feeling of death, the old childhood fear is reborn in him. He feels dead. When it came time to sing the feast, another Alexander, who knew his problem, took care to remove or cover all the funerary items so that the narrator could join in the singing. The atmosphere changes, becomes festive. The three bachelors sing enthusiastically, celebrating the holidays at home in the metropolis, and Stratis now wishes “health to the living” with the addition of “and a double year, guys!” (Vl, 189). But when it is his turn to sing instead of the solemn trope of Enos of the feast, he will sing “Sorrow and Sorrow” of the funeral service, weeping bitterly. Three bachelors celebrate Christmas alone, eating, drinking and singing Christmas carols along with the funeral! Incredible, amazing picture! Now the narrator returns to his former state of paralyzing fear, he feels dead. He closes his eyes and ears, does not want to see or hear, and falls asleep. And then he will see a dream that will take him, oh miracle, to childhood: “You were killed by the modern generation, I lived in other, old times, poisonous times, sweet times, forgotten times, golden times of childhood. . And I was a child” (II, 190). He will tell us about it in detail: he is on the mythical island – that’s why he is not named – of his childhood, green, on Christmas Eve, with its inhabitants, fasting for 40 days, beautiful island birds. who whiten and soften the huts, fishermen and farmers who leave their tools and come to the village to shave and wash, with carols, Christmas carols and fat chicken, the sound of a bell at two in the morning, a meeting in the church, with two respectable priests , one of which was old Papadiamantis, with women in gold jewelry behind the skins of gynoconite, with men and children dressed in the best, with Euthian stew, goblets and a set table “in spite of that they shone, warmed him, our whitewashed hearth, a holy and sweet dwelling winters” (B΄, 193). Everything is there and nothing is missing! They all come to life in a dream. Finally, a real holiday: “I celebrated the most tender Christmas with so many faces that no longer exist” (B΄, 194). Christmas has become a dream, but able to warm “soul and body.” After all, the only Christmas that exists is the mythical Christmas of our childhood!

I expected the short story to end here. And yet, no, his last page remains, where the priest of the cemetery appears without an invitation, with a bottle of wine in his hand. The celebration continues, they eat and drink, and Papadiamantis calls Mr. Stratis to sing the solemn parts of the day, and the priest the funeral parts, and everyone laughs. The narrator, who celebrated “tenderly” with those who are no longer there, now shares “the joy of the joy of a friendly dinner” (B΄, 194). For the health of the dead, for the health of the living! “Christmas is near” (A’, 46)!