A New Tradition: Celebrating Ethiopian Christmas

This year we began what we assume will be an annual tradition of celebrating Ethiopian Christmas. There are several distinctions between the two, beginning with the food which focuses on doro wat and defo dabo bread instead of fruit cake and figgy pudding. Ethiopia clearly wins between those dishes!

In addition, Ethiopian Christmas follows the Orthodox calendar, generally falling on January 7. The Ethiopian calendar is interesting on several fronts. They follow the Julian calendar (as opposed the we Westerners who follow the Gregorian) which consists of 12 months of 30 days followed by a 13^th month of 5-6 days to make up the difference and account for leap year (and explains why Ethiopian Christmas is “usually” on January 7^th). The Ethiopian calendar is also 7 years, five months behind the Gregorian calendar – meaning that it is now the year 2005 in Ethiopia. (Just to make it a little more confusing, they also tell time differently, beginning the day when the sun comes up - so 9am is usually 2:00 - or the second hour after sunrise. It is a logical way to utilize a 24 hour clock, but confusing for the rest of us). 

But today, January 7, 2013 (by the reckoning of the West), is Ethiopian Christmas - a festive day in the Horn of Africa. Called Ganna, Christmas celebrations in Ethiopia focus on enjoying a festive meal, coffee ceremony and fellowship with friends. Apparently a game sort of like field hockey used to be common and is still played in some rural regions - with significant trash talking by the winners. 

Last night we had an Ethiopian friend join us for our Ganna celebration. Becky made three incredible dishes – doro wat  (chicken in sauce), a lentil wat (wat means “sauce" or "stew” and is used to describe many of the dishes eaten with injeera bread) and a chickpea wat. She also made the defo dabo bread – which is very different from injeera. Injeera is a flat bread made with teff flour and has a fermented, sourdough taste to it. The defo dabo bread is a yeast bread, and has several spices including ajwain, coriander and black cumin seeds. It is also called giant bread because the recipe we had made a two-pound loaf – and was about 1/6 of the full recipe. Traditionally, it is backed in a huge round clay pot. It is quite yummy.

Our friend, who has already become a bit of an Ethiopian “auntie” to our boys, also brought three dishes including a spicy doro wat, a dish with collard greens and another chickpea wat.  If you have never eaten Ethiopian food, it is often served on a large family platter. You use the injeera bread to dip and scoop the various stews, meats and vegetables. Everyone eats with their hands – or as one Ethiopian friend of mine says, “today we will eat with the utensils God gave us” (spoken as he holds up his hands).  At our meal, everything was delicious. The Internet, a trip or two to the Indian grocery store for exotic spices, and my wife can cook some great Ethiopian food.

In addition to the food, our friend brought green coffee beans that she roasted in a pan. We ground the hot beans and enjoyed wonderful Ethiopian coffee from a traditional clay pot. I would argue that Ethiopians both originated coffee and have created one of the more enjoyable social customs for its consumption. BTW - click here for a great video book report on the legend of the dancing goat).  The boys loved the incense, which is often burned as part of the coffee ceremony.

The evening concluded with an introductory lesson to Amharic – the language of Ethiopia, which became a little less daunting as we learned how the “vowel” endings combine with the consonants, producing an alphabet chart with hundreds of characters. However, there are only two dozen main characters, the rest are variations based on the vowels. Maybe there is hope for learning the language.

As we wait for Customs and Immigration to process the next phase of our paperwork, we are grateful for the chance to build a family tradition, celebrating Christmas with an Ethiopian friend and with wonderful food. (This was actually our second Ethiopian meal of the weekend, as we also went to an Ethiopian restaurant in Milwaukee with some friends – great time, great food – and all the kids love the idea of eating with their hands.”). Praying the family expands for next year’s Ethiopian Christmas.