• Instead of the classic chocolate cake, how about finding a recipe for chocolate chip cookies and baking them with your partner.
  
  
• Find your favorite songs and bring back the memories – the occasion and place you were when you first listened to them together. Geographical distance may separate you but fortunately the internet has the power to unite you. And while online shopping may not be on top of your list, it does help.
  
  
• Dance your favorite songs together and even better, include your children if you have any.
  
  
• Create your own unique card and surprise him/her.
  
  
• Remember where you met first, how you felt, the special circumstances and share your story with your children.
  
  
• Write down the characteristics you admire in your partner and recite them to him/her or give them to him/her to read.
  
  
• Remember some funny moments you’ve experienced throughout your relationship.
  
  
• Cook a meal together or with your kids if they are around – and yes, chips, beer, pizza and juices are all welcomed.

Put your imagination to work and you will find many different, beautiful and funny ways to celebrate. It does not matter what you do but how you do it. And even more how you do it not only this one day but every single day of the year. What really matters is that you recognize and accept and celebrate the person – and with the person – you love every day.

Originally Published on: Itsmylife.gr

Written by Nadia Georgiou.

If there’s a topic you’re interested in and would like to learn more about you may contact me via email. For more information about me and my work check the XpatAthens Directory or visit my website. Because this is your life!

The real Greece… I spent Sunday in the village – the place where my father was born, the place where most of my extended family lives, the place that feels most like the ‘real Greece’. And of course, the place where one finds that most central event of Greek culture: the ‘Sunday family meal’.

Food is love. If you’ve ever doubted that, you haven’t met my Theia Maro. The Sunday meal is planned days in advance – with fact-finding phone calls to figure out what we all want to eat (‘anything but lamb’, I say), with plans and revisions and more plans. And then a last-minute change to the menu because ‘the butcher had some really great lamb’.

We all gathered together a little while after midday, told our stories of the previous weeks, complained about the state of the nation, talked about the weather (Theia Maro, it turns out, is also an expert meteorologist who can predict weather patterns days in advance), and generally shared the mundane aspects of our daily lives – all the things that connect us and make us ‘family’.

And then it was time to clink our wine glasses and eat. But it’s not enough to simply sit around the long table and consume. There are important rituals during the Sunday family meal, which must not be avoided. These include explaining the meal, critiquing the meal, comparing to previous meals, planning future meals – all of this in the wonderful multi-decibel choir of voices of every Greek dinner table.

I remember the exact same scenario from almost every Sunday (or any day!) meal, back when I would spend summers in the village, back when it didn’t mean as much. These days, it feels good to know that some things never change, in spite of ourselves and the world around us.

The Sunday Family Meal, Greek-style!
Location: a village near you.

See you next week,

Jack

In this weekly space, keep up with ‘Jack’ as he navigates daily life in Athens… Anecdotes, stories, hits & misses, the good, the bad and, well, the rest…