Tsiknopempti
12 February 2026 · movable holiday — Smells like a barbecue! Greece and Cyprus are grilling, and I'm blowing smoky rings.
Tsiknopempti, or Smoky Thursday, is celebrated in Greece and Cyprus on the Thursday of the meat-fare week, 11 days before the start of Great Lent. The name comes from the Greek words for the smell of grilled food (tsikna) and Thursday (pempti). On this day people fire up grills, roast meat and gather with family and friends at home, in tavernas and in the streets, which fill with the smell of smoke. The festival belongs to Apokries, the Greek carnival season, which opens with the Triodion (the church period leading up to Easter). The following Sunday is Meat-Fare Sunday, then comes cheese week, and the fast begins. The date moves because it depends on Orthodox Easter. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the spring equinox, but the Orthodox Church reckons these dates by the old Julian calendar and by tables rather than the actual sky, so Orthodox Easter is often later than Western Easter. So Smoky Thursday is tied to the cycles of the Moon and the Sun.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver constellation figure made of bright dots and lines, shaped like a small cloud-grill drifting across the night sky
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