The 12 of us around the kitchen table said our prayers individually in hushed tones.
Michael Ziatyk, the 73-year-old head of the household, dipped his spoon into the large bowl of wheat porridge at the center of the table and twice swept it from side to side in the sign of the cross, then ate a spoonful mixed with nuts, poppy seeds and honey. In turn, we also dipped our spoons and ate, a family communion of sorts.
This meal marked the beginning of the second of three “holy suppers’’ my wife and I shared with relatives on Christmas Eve, on Jan. 6 of this year, in the small Ukrainian village of Shutromynsti. (Ukrainians who are Greek Catholic and Eastern Orthodox usually celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7 because they follow the old Julian calendar as opposed to the newer Gregorian calendar.)
