Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? I Think...

We're a little late in celebrating Thanksgiving this year.  Our community of friends couldn't get our schedules to jive until Saturday rather than Thursday which is just fine.  I've had a few days of sheer bliss to putter around the house and pull out every decoration that John ever commented about for the occasion.

When deciding the invitation list, a conundrum came up. We are the only Americans within our current circle of friends.  That means that everyone else coming doesn't really have any background for pilgrims, turkeys, candy corn…no matter.  We SHALL be thankful and we SHALL be in a group.  

The first on our list were our Canadian friends (who also have a national Thanksgiving holiday, but it's in October), followed by a German lady and a French man.  They all agreed to come.  

Our Egyptian friends are a little tougher to nail down.  The conversation goes something like this:

"We would like to invite you to celebrate Eid Shokr (Holiday of Thanks) with us.  It is on Saturday at 1:30 pm.  We will eat together at 2:30 pm.  Can you come?"

"Inshallah (If God wills it), I will ask my husband."

"That's great.  Just let me know."

(Three days pass…)

My Canadian friend calls, "Are our Egyptian friends coming?"

"Not sure," I say, "Why don't you give it a try?"  She does.

"Well?" I ask.

"She says that their daughter has a class at 4:30, but that they would like to come, inshallah."

"Is that an inshallah 'we're coming' or an inshallah 'not gonna happen'?" I try to clarify.

"Not sure.  We will have to just wait until Saturday."

We have another Egyptian friend whom we asked to attend also.  He says that he is too shy to come.  He doesn't like crowds.  We try a variety of ways to convince him, but to no avail.  He prefers small groups.  Okay.  At least I have a clear answer…or so I thought.

We saw him on Thursday and he said, "Saturday sounds very nice.  I will see you then."

Surprised I said, "Oh, you're coming?  That's great!  We will eat around 2:30 pm."

"No," he says, "I am shy.  I don't like crowds."  Then he says, "See you on Saturday."

So currently our table is set for everyone who could possibly show up complete with place cards.  We will see…

Until then, I'm spending the morning putting the finishing touches on everything and thanking the Lord for all of His help this year.  Our daughters are doing well, our village has welcomed us and I found a can of condensed milk to go with my can of pumpkin I've saved for a year.  (We shall eat pie!)  So much to be grateful for…