Ethiopian Christmas and the Ethiopian Calendar System

On January 7, Ethiopians celebrate Christmas with their neighbours, friends and families, and many of them attend church.

Orthodox Ethiopian Christians “fast” for 40 days before Gena, eating a diet without meat, fish, milk, butter or other animal products. On Gena they break the fast with a feast that includes dishes containing chicken, beef and lamb. In the days before Gena, you see people carrying live chickens on the streets and on minibuses, and sheep are everwhere to be seen, especially in condominium and apartment compounds and in the yards of people’s homes. There are people pushing, pulling, dragging, carrying sheep on their shoulders, maneuvering them into car trunks and taxis.

On the morning of Gena, all of these sheep, cows and chickens disappear after being killed and prepared for the Gena feast. You will, though, see sheep skulls lying around for pet dogs to eat, and on Gena there are people selling the animal skins on the streets.

Many Orthodox Christians, including the Ethiopian, Russian, Greek and Serbian Othodox churches, celebrate Christmas Day on January 7th. The reason for this is that their calendar is similar (but not identical) to the so-called Julian calendar, which was named after Julius Caesar, who began this calendar in 45BC. The Julian calendar had 365 days in a year and 366 days every fourth (leap) year. Unfortunately, it was slightly inaccurate because it overestimated the length of a year by 11 minutes. That meant that every 400 years the world gained three days with the Julian calendar. (Let’s do the maths: 11 minutes gained per year multiplied by 400 years equals 4,400 minutes gained in 400 years. Divide 4,400 by 60 to give the number of hours gained, then by 24, to give the number of days gained…..answer is 3.05 days gained in 400 years.)

To compensate for this, in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII changed the calendar by making all years that are divisible by 100 non-leap years, unless they are also divisible by 400. For example, the years 1700, 1800 and 1900 are divisible by 100 but not by 400, so they were not leap years (but they were leap years in the Julian calendar). However, 1600 and 2000 were leap years because they are divisible by 400. If you lived through the year 2000, not only did you witness the turn of a new millenium, but also it was the only year with two zeros on the end of it since 1600 that was a leap year, and there won’t be another leap year with two zeros on the end of it until 2400. The new calendar of 1582 was called the Gregorian calendar after the Pope, and it is the calendar most countries use today.

It gets a little more complicated, but what Pope Gregory did in 1582 was immediately to subtract 10 days from the calendar to catch up somewhat, then the world instigated his new Gregorian calendar. Since 1582 there have been 3 days extra in the Julian calendar, from the years 1700, 1800 and 1900, which are leap years in the Julian calendar but not in the Gregorian calendar. Add these 3 days to the 10 days that Pope Gregory immediately subtracted from the Julian calendar in 1582 and you get 13 days extra if you follow the Julian calendar. Add those extra 13 days to December 25th and you get January 7th, which is why January 7th is Christmas day in Ethiopia, because orthodox Ethiopians do not follow the Gregorian calendar.

It gets more confusing, because in Ethiopia the year right now is not 2020 (as we write), as it is in other countries: it is 2013.

Ethiopian Christmas tradition involves people playing a game called ganna or genna, which has some resemblance to hockey. it is said that shepherds in the era of Christ’s birth played a similar game with their crooks. It’s connection with Christmas is presumably that around the time of Christ’s birth, the shepherds who watched their flocks by night, and to whom the Angel of the Lord appeared, may well have been playing a game similar to genna with their crooks during the time that heavenly event took place.

Traditional Ethiopian food is served with injera (a healthy traditional Ethiopian round, spongy, flat bread made with the grain, teff) with wat, a stew that is often made with a popular spice called berbere. The wat can be made with lamb, beef, fish, goat or chicken and contains peas or lentils and vegetables. Doro wat, a stew made from chickens (doro), containing whole hard-boiled eggs (without the shell), is a particularly popular and delicious dish that’s eaten at Gena. Meat from sheep can be eaten as a stew (yebeg wat) or separately.

Following this delicious meal is a coffee ceremony. Coffee beans will be roasted in front of hosts and guests as the pan was passed around for everyone to savour the aroma, hmmmmmmm… just as the Ethiopian goatherd, Kaldi, may have done over a thousand years ago when he and his friends became the first humans known to drink coffee. The coffee is served with popcorn and sipped in the midst of the magical aroma of burning incense.

After the coffee ceremony, Tej will be served, a popular Ethiopian wine made from fermented honey, without grapes. Boiled extracts of the dried stems and leaves of a shrub called gesho are used as a source of natural yeasts to ferment the wine. Tej is bright yellow, sweet, slightly cloudy, and has a fairly high alcohol content.

Ethiopians generally don’t buy expensive Christmas presents for each other for Christmas. A gift of some coffee beans or some traditional homemade Ethiopian bread called defo dabbo, is very much appreciated. For a very special Christmas gift, you can buy your hosts a sheep, but you should let them know in advance so they can be prepared for it. If they own a house they will keep it in their yard tied up until it is ready to be killed and eaten. Otherwise, the sheep can be kept in an apartment complex for the day or two before Gena.

Gena is less about materialism and presents and more about it’s religious significance and about spending time with family and friends. Neighbours also come and go and there’s plenty of warmth, laughter and conversation.

We wish you all a Happy Ethiopian Christmas: Melkam Gena! Or can say: “Inkwan le Gena be’al beTaena, beSelamna, beDesta aderesachu!” (“Have a wonderful Gena with health, peace and happiness!”).

Melkam Genna! መልካም ገና ! Happy Ethiopian Christmas!