Dinner with the Departed - OMA

My relatives - grandparents, aunts and uncles - died back in the 90s. My mother, like my grandmother, taught by old traditions, always set the table at night for Christmas. She left spoons, plates, kutya, jellied meat, dumplings and glasses of wine. There were about 4 people. All this stood ready, as if for living people who were supposed to come into the kitchen and sit down at the table.

I lived then with my twin brother, we were about 15 years old, I didn’t pay much attention to this ceremony. When I asked my mother what was the point of setting the table for the night, she replied that on Christmas the heavens are open and all our departed come to visit and have dinner (evening meal). But I never thought that they really came to eat, it seemed to me a fiction and an ordinary tradition.

P.S: I did it just like that, and so I know that it’s very mediocre.