As of recently, two things have really got me jived: the holiday season, and the My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 trailer. Ladies and gentlemen, the sequel to my life. In celebration of the world's most accurate representation of my life, I figured I'd report on the seemingly unhealthy amount of family dysfunction that is my Greek family at holiday get-togethers.

To avoid any sort of confusion, let me first set somethings straight:

1. While we Greeks do in fact, follow a different calendar, that doesn't affect major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

2. Yes, we celebrate everything you do. We celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Easter, and every little day in between...we probably do it bigger, too.

I'd be lying if I said my uncle didn't just jump rope for ten minutes in the middle of my living room. There are three of us cooking and drinking. One of us is on the floor exercising. One of us is writing. I lied, he's jumping rope again. 14 of us aren't even here yet. If you've ever tried to fit 19 Greek/Irish/Non-Greek people into a small 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath home, you're perfectly aware of just how ridiculous the idea even is to begin with. You're also aware that there's absolutely no other way you'd have it.

Needless to say, I'll be reporting throughout the next couple days in an attempt to showcase the dysfunction that is my large, Greek family over a holiday.

Thanksgiving Eve:

I found the first half of today fairly uneventful. We cleaned, prepped, and ran the typical errands of a family preparing for a Thanksgiving Day feast...and then the family started coming in. It didn't matter that it was only two people, it still warranted enough food to feed an army (and not even a small army, because if it was a small army, no one would leave with leftovers) and enough liquor to drop the biggest drunken sailor on his ass.

After my Papou passed away in April, my family looked for ways to get rid of all the food people had given us and the food that we had gone out and purchased for ourselves, because, you know...four trips to the store in two days just wasn't enough! So, with all this food, we did what all good Greeks do--we threw it together and ate it. Thus was the birth of the food baby I like to call "chipped ham nachos," aka: Pittsburgh on a plate. Somehow, Utz potato chips, Islay's chipped ham, pickles, mustard, mayonnaise, hot sauce, and an abundance of cheese came together and made beautiful, beautiful music. Naturally, we ate a couple pans. And three pizzas...and maybe broke open a few bottles of wine and cranked the Greek music for all our neighbors to hear. All for two people, because why not? Totally worth it.

Thanksgiving Day:

Okay, so now the fun really begins. My entire family showed up by 2pm. Most of them got there by 11am, just in time to break open a bottle or three of wine, a few gallons of soup, some puff pastry, a couple bags of chips, and a sandwich and vegetable platter...you know, something light. Traditionally, my family will stay inside and play a couple board games, but this year, we were blessed with beautiful weather so we took the crazy outside.

For those of you who haven't had the exhilarating experience of playing Taboo with 18 of your closest, loudest, Greek relatives, let me elaborate a little for you: pick your loudest, most enthusiastic, yet slightly intoxicated family member you come across over the holidays. Multiply by eighteen. Add one high-pitched, noisy buzzer, and you've got a game of Taboo with my family. Now, we Greeks like to be loud. We like to talk with our hands and we like to argue with each other about the validity of anything said anytime. Needless to say, it's one of my family's favorite games because in the end, we laugh harder than we did the year before and it's always a good time all around. I'll skip the concerning, albeit hilarious details of how some of the words were described, but let's just say I've never heard such a vibrant description of a hickey in my life. After calling it quits, the music was once again cranked up and we danced Greek in my kitchen so if anyone had any doubts about our heritage or where we came from, they could just crack a window.

Having a dinner party of 18 over isn't a light thing. The dinner table stretched all the way to the end of my living room and so did the food. The food was amazing and the conversation was even better. Twenty-seven pounds of turkey, ten pounds of macaroni and cheese, and about eleven side dishes later, Thanksgiving had been conquered...until dessert where we promptly consumed only two and a half pumpkin rolls, three pies, two pans of apple crisp, and a container of Oreo dirt balls. Relevant side note: every year, my mom, who cooks all this food (bless her soul!) believes that we just don't have enough food for everyone, as a typical Greek would. I like to believe she got that from her mother, my Yiayia, who would force feed me from the ripe age of three until the food was gone. It didn't matter if I was full, if there was food left, no one left until it was gone. We were all just jazzed because since we got our downstairs bathroom re-done, that meant we could have two bathrooms to use this year (it's the little things.)

So we did just that. We ate until it was gone. Breakfast? Turkey. Lunch? Turkey salad now that my aunt showed up and chastised my mother for only having maybe a handful of sliced almonds for it. Remember those KFC mashed potato bowls with the corn and the chicken and cheese and gravy on them? That's a lot what Thanksgiving leftovers in our house looks like because we need to eat it. All of it, in large quantities, immediately. Why? Because that's what Greeks do--we eat, and when we're full, we force others to eat for us because nothing shall ever go to waste in a Greek household, and THEN, we make bets on who'll cave first, who'll be the first to clog the toilet, and who we're going to force feed the last piece of spanakopita to because Heaven forbid it get thrown out!

So here I am. Three days after Thanksgiving. Ten pounds heavier, and still eating leftovers that are probably way past their expiration dates. I'm exhausted, my body aches, and I have no voice. But that's the beauty of it all. This is my family and yeah, we're loud and proud and we'll hit you with spoons if you come into our kitchen on Thanksgiving, but that's family. We're supposed to annoy each other until someone gets hit, drink too much ouzo, and make too much food, and I'd be a bad Greek if I didn't go along with it.

Family is family, no matter which way you slice it, and I can't wait to do it all again next month. Happy Thanksgiving from my big, fat, Greek family to yours!