Athens welcomed the New Year with a fireworks display on the stroke of midnight following a day of celebratory events in central Athens. Hundreds of people ignored the bitter cold and joined the crowd that had gathered in the neighborhood of Thisio where the municipality of Athens was hosting music gigs to bid farewell to 2016 and welcome the New Year. 

Food and clothes were the main items purchased by Greeks over the Christmas holidays, a poll by the marketing laboratory (MARLAB) of the University of Macedonia revealed on Sunday, with 85 percent of respondents saying they shopped during the holidays.

"Our concern is the removal of inequalities, the change of the poverty climate and the relief of the weakest citizens, and we will continue to be working on this direction," the President of the Parliament Nikos Voutsis said on his message for the New Year.