"Rusty" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>
> Nancy Young wrote:
>> (apologies to those who find that term offensive)
>>
>> We went to Las Vegas for my BIL's funeral and there it was ...
>> funeral food. I'd asked, what happens after the funeral? Are we
>> going out or something? Understand, the only person who lives there
>> is my SIL and she didn't have the room or the energy to host a whole
>> bunch of people from out of town.
>>
>> My other SIL asked the reverend, he said, oh, we can do food.
>> So, for free, absolutely free (of course I thought of Dave Smith's wife)
>> they put out a bunch of food. I didn't take a very close look, but there
>> were sandwiches from somewhere, a big platter of them, plenty of fruit
>> and vegetable/dip platters. Kentucky Fried Chicken. A sheet cake and
>> a homemade cheescake type thing, that was so very good. Soda/coffee.
>>
>
> Sorry to hear about your loss. Sounds like some good people there in
> Las Vegas.
>
> My wife's aunt passed away in 1990. She and here husband were of
> Armenian descent. An "old country" tradition is a meal after the
> funeral. Her uncle was a well to do business man and laid out a catered
> spread at the orthodox Armenian church reception hall that must have
> cost thousands of dollars. There must have been at least a hundred
> people there. Seems to me like an undue burden to place on a family
> during a time of grief, but that's what they do.
>
> -Rusty
>

Our family tradition was to take people to a restaurant for lunch afterward.
When my mother died, it was the end of October, and every restaurant I
looked into that had a private room, also had ghosts and witches and
skeletons and whatnot as Halloween decorations. If you knew my mother, you
would understand that it was eerily appropriate.

As far as cost, I don't know how folks with large families finance the
lunches. When I was a kid, I can remember the lunches being as big as some
weddings I'd been to. By the time my mom died, most of her generation was
either dead or incapacitated enough not to attend. The younger folks just
came to the wake and not the funeral, so the lunch wasn't nearly the expense
it could have been.

Donna