There are far more Gods today than there were in Ancient Greece. Each God supposedly talks to the men who run the religious organizations. People seem to like the pomp and ceremony., gilt and guilt of it all. I've always refused to believe that I was born a sinner and viewed it as some sadists having sneaked it into religion like politicians sneak things into new bills. There are several calendars around, as well. The American Easter and Greek Easter are celebrated on the same day only every four years.
For the lesser religious Greeks, food was the order of the day...food and family. The family part speaks for itself. There are 100 years between those hands: Great Grandfather and Great Grandson.
We can pick our food but we can't pick our relatives. If you happen to like your own, consider yourself very lucky.
The red eggs in the bread I guess symbolize something important like Christ's blood in eggs (a symbol of life). There is an interesting custom in which each person takes a dyed boiled egg (traditionally they were all dyed egg because no Greek had heard of the Easter Bunny). People then made a contest out of hitting the sharp end of someone else's egg. If there was anyone with a nose intact at the end, a winner would be declared. Ham was not a tradition of the Greeks, but rather, lamb or goat (even better tasting and tender) were roasted in ovens or over coals, sprinkled with garlic, lemon and olive oil. In Greece, oregano added is fresh, soft and green with a more delicate aroma, generally picked right off the mountainside in the Peloponnese villages. As with all ethnic religious holidays, no one ever left with an empty tummy.
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