Tomorrow: My Dead-On Thanksgiving Prediction

Tomorrow is my favorite holiday of the year, and I'll be home to celebrate it!!  I'll be flying through PANAMA today, so if you know anything about geography you'll know that this equates to many hours of travel, but its worth it for Thanksgiving.

I know exactly how the day will go.

My yiayia will wake me up by calling at 8:00 AM to tell me that she has "been cooking since 4 in the morning" and will ask what time we're coming over.  

We'll arrive around noon and the parade or American football will be on the TV.  I'll admire the 13,204,584 Christmas decorations around the house, even though she's told me that she isn't putting any up this year (she says this every year).  

I'll set the table and we'll struggle to find room to fit all the food on it.  We'll comment on the fact that we are 10 people but that there is enough food to feed a family of 35.  

We will dig in to our Greek/American Thanksgiving feast.  We will have the standard dishes - turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, etc - and Greek things - spinach pie, stuffed grape leaves, pastitsio..  We will hope that she hasn't made anything "special", like lamp soup with the eyeballs still inside.

We'll talk about things.  My grandma will try to bicker with my grandpa, and my grandpa will just laugh right back.  My uncle, the king of sarcasm, will make jokes and try to pick on me.  My brother will eat quietly and try to wander off to the other room.  My grandma will accuse boyfriend of not eating enough (regardless of whether he's on plate 1 or plate 5) and will manage to slap more food onto his plate.  My mom will tell me that she's too sick with indigestion and that I have to do the dishes.  

The combination of the warm temperature permanently set by the thermostat and the pounds of food we will have consumed will make us feel overheated, and we'll open the patio door to let the chilly Chicago fall air come in.  We will clear the plates, and then somehow find it in us to make room for dessert.

Me, Yaya, Aunt Costi, Mom

We will ask yaya to "read our cups" (the grinds in Greek coffee) and fight over who gets to go first (the mind gets tired after a cup or two).  I'll argue that I live abroad and never get to have her read mine, and hopefully I'll get to be #1.  She'll say she's too tired to do it, but does it anyway.  She'll look deep into the grinds and tell me that I recently told someone off {always says this}, and that I have a promotion coming up.  I don't know if I believe any of it but I choose to look on the bright side.  

By the time we leave I tell boyfriend that I'm going on a diet and that I'm not eating again until December.  We later eat Thanksgiving leftovers and some baklava around 9 PM.

This year I am thankful for Thanksgiving!  

Happy Thanksgiving!