Greek austerity measures make for a lower-key Christmas in Athens

Helena Smith in Athens guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 December 2012 18.44 GMT

City is spending a tenth of the usual budget on fairy lights and fir but promises to spread the 'real meaning of Christmas'

A dog gets in the Christmas spirit in Athens' Syntagma square, which will this year feature an assortment of smaller concept trees in order to save money. Photograph: Petros Giannakouris/AP

When you are bankrupt, you have to do Christmas on a budget. And so it is in Greece, starved of cash thanks to the country's great economic crisis. Only years after it had basked in the glory of erecting Europe's biggest Christmas tree, city hall in Athens is now forced to be more thrifty with its display of fairy lights and fir.

"This year's Christmas events do not aim at an easy and ornate spectacle and they are not based on thoughtless waste," declared Giorgos Kaminis, the capital's mayor, as a very different kind of tree was unveiled in Syntagma square.

They would, said Kaminis, spend only a tenth of the budget of previous years. Although "young and old alike" would be entertained with music, theatre, dance, carols and clowns, it would be merry-making in the age of austerity.

With the municipality barely able to pay its bills, only three central squares and Athens' biggest boulevards are to be illuminated, in stark contrast to years gone by when spendthrift authorities had given it their all. "Our goal this year," said city councillor Vasilliki Georgiou, "is to spread the real meaning of Christmas – solidarity, love and fraternity."

In the spirit of such times, Syntagma square – which has been the focus of mass protests against punishing austerity measures required to secure international rescue funds – will be adorned with not one but 16 miniature trees carved by fine arts students in Athens. An ice-rink sponsored by Wind, the mobile telephone company, will also grace the plaza.

"There's also going to be a light show so the tree will look very different at night," enthused a municipal employee overseeing last-minute preparations ahead of the unveiling. "And there'll be music too," she said as trumpeters and saxophonists with the town hall's orchestra got into the mood with a jazzy rendition of Christmas carols.

Athens is home to almost half of Greece's 12 million people, but with poverty and unemployment on the rise it is not the only city that will look different as the festive season approaches.

Authorities in the western port city of Patras have had to dramatically shrink celebrations partly because they have been deluged with requests for help over the Christmas period.

"Last year we fed 800 families living below the poverty line," said Theoharis Massaras, who as deputy mayor directs the municipality's social services. "This year that number has gone up to 1,300 families and every day sees the birth of yet more new poor, We're finding it very difficult to cope," he told the Guardian.

In Thessaloniki, the country's second-biggest city, mayor Yiannis Boutaris, a popular businessman, caused shockwaves this week when he announced that, like most Greeks, he could not afford to heat his eighth-floor rented apartment, being forced instead to keep warm under a blanket.

Greek austerity measures make for a lower-key Christmas in Athens | World news | guardian.co.uk