It’s October 26th, Saint Dimitrios Day. In Thessaloniki, his home turf, the celebrations are big. Church bells ring, flags wave, and families gather for the traditional feast. But all across Greece, something far more universal happens on this day.
We change the clocks and our clothes.
That’s right. October 26th marks the unofficial, but nationally synchronized, wardrobe migration, from linen to wool, sandals to boots, optimism to mild melancholy.
It’s the day every Greek household turns into a scene from a Fellini film: wardrobes flung open, beds covered in sweaters, and Yiayiades giving firm seasonal directives like military generals.
Operation Winter Wardrobe
In most houses (like my house growing up) the smell hits you first. Mothballs. Sharp, nostalgic, and slightly toxic, the smell of Greek winter.
Yiayiades, mothers, and daughters line up like an intergenerational army of textile logisticians. Someone opens the storage room. Someone else drags out the big blue plastic bins labeled “ΧΕΙΜΩΝΑΣ” (Winter). Within minutes, the entire house looks like a clothing bazaar.
Greek homes rarely have enough closet space for both summer and winter wardrobes. So, twice a year, every family performs the same sacred ritual: moving one entire season’s clothes into hiding, while liberating the other from exile.
Summer clothes, light, breezy, smelling faintly of sunscreen and watermelon, get folded, packed, and tucked away in the basement, attic, or under the bed in those miraculous zip-up fabric closets that could probably survive an earthquake.
Out come the sweaters, coats, scarves, and wool socks, items you haven’t seen since April but which still carry faint traces of last year’s fireplace smoke and honey.
Someone always shouts from another room,
“Re (hey), I can’t find my black sweater!”
And Yiayia responds, without looking up,
“It’s in the big bag, behind the other big bag, near the one you said you’d throw away and didn’t.”
And she’s always right.
The Scent of the Season
If there were a candle called “Greek Autumn,” it would smell exactly like this: mothballs, coffee, and floor polish, with a faint note of oregano from the kitchen.
Because this wardrobe change is not just about clothes — it’s about mood. The long, lazy afternoons of the Greek summer fade into shorter, cozier evenings. Cafés switch from freddo cappuccino to hot Greek coffee. The sea is no longer for swimming, but for staring at pensively, wrapped in a jacket, wondering how it got cold so fast and why the rain won’t stop..
Closet Logistics 101
You can tell a lot about a Greek household by where the off-season clothes are stored:
Basement people: The classic option. Cool, dark, and slightly damp. Clothes come out smelling like history.
Under-the-bed people: Practical, but risky. There’s always that one moment in March when you try to retrieve a box and realize it’s wedged behind the bedframe forever.
Balcony storage box people: Bold. These are the ones who believe in the power of duct tape and divine protection against humidity.
And then, of course, there are the minimalists — those rare creatures who claim, “I don’t really change clothes by season.” These are usually men, and they’re lying. Someone else does it for them.
Why October 26th?
There’s no written decree. It’s just one of those unspoken cultural truths. Saint Dimitrios marks the turning point of the Greek year, the spiritual handover from the carefree summer to the contemplative winter.
Farmers start pruning their olive trees. Students start studying (in theory). And everyone brings down the duvets from storage.
This year, it happened to fall on a Sunday and the day Greece changed its clocks. A perfect storm. As the clocks went back, the sweaters came out. Somewhere, an entire nation sighed in unison, “Re (hey), now it gets dark at six!”
The False Start of Greek Winter
Of course, the joke’s on us.Because two days later, the sun will come blazing back at 28°C (82°F), and we’ll all be sweating in our newly unearthed wool sweaters, pretending not to regret our choices.
Yiayia, sitting proudly in her cardigan, refuses to admit defeat:
“It’s October 26th. It’s winter. Even if it’s hot, it’s cold.”
And that’s that. The national thermostat is set by tradition, not temperature.
Epilogue: The Mothball Symphony
By nightfall, the mission is complete. Closets are neatly rearranged. Summer dresses are gone, winter coats reign supreme, and the whole house smells like childhood memories and clean laundry.
Outside, Saint Dimitrios’ fireworks light up the Thessaloniki sky. Inside, families sip hot tea and talk about how “this year will be colder than last year,” a statement repeated annually since 1952.
Tomorrow, we’ll probably open the windows again and air everything out. But for today, Greece collectively declares:
“Χειμώνας ήρθε!”
(Winter is here!)
Even if it’s still 25 degrees and sunny.
P.S.
My own contribution to the changing season? Baking.Like Martha Stewart, or Chrysa Paradeisi, the Greek Martha, I took refuge in the kitchen, channeling my inner domestic goddess while the real hero of the household, my New Yorker wife, performed the seasonal wardrobe migration.
The smell of chocolate, vanilla and butter mixed with the unmistakable scent of mothballs, the official fragrance of Saint Dimitrios Day in our home.
Footnotes
¹ The smell of mothballs is so strong, it could be used as an alternative to tear gas.² Greek portable closets are proof that IKEA got its best ideas from Greek mothers.³ If you ever want to witness true chaos, announce to a Greek household that you’re skipping the wardrobe change this year.
