💬 At our Eid lunch everybody sits in the same order and nobody knows why

Every Eid, the whole family gathers at my aunt's house in Mehdipatnam. 22 people, 1 long sheet on the floor. And there is a seating order. Not written anywhere, never discussed, but nobody breaks it. My grandfather's spot is at the head, and it stays empty. He passed in 2014. No one sits there. My father sits to its right, then his brothers by age. The women eat after, in the kitchen. I've been in Jeddah for 6 years, so I only see it on video call now. It's like watching a play. Everyone in their exact place. The kids on the side, the biggest bowl always in front of my uncle. I asked my mother how it started. She said, this is how it has always been. That's the whole answer. I asked my aunt. She said, ask your mother. I asked my father. He said, why do you ask? The one time someone broke it was 2017. My cousin from Pune brought his wife and sat her next to my father. Nobody said anything. But the whole lunch felt wrong, like a tooth out of place. Everybody was too polite. By the next Eid, she'd learned the order. She sits with the women now, and she looks relieved about it. I think she'd rather have the kitchen and the gossip than the polite silence anyway. When I'm home I sit between my two cousins, where I've sat since I was 8. Never thought to ask. Does your family have a rule like this? One that nobody made, but everyone follows? My wife's family has no order at all. They just sit anywhere. I find it very stressful. The first Eid at her place I stood at the door for a full minute, waiting to be told where.

A grandfather's empty seat at the head is the quietest tribute I can think of. In our family nobody touches my grandmother's old chair on the veranda, and nobody ever agreed to that. Rules like that hold a family together without anyone saying so. Watching it by video call from Jeddah must feel strange. Does your family tilt the phone so you can see the head of the sheet?

We have an odd one too. On Eid everyone writes a small note for 1 person in the family, picked by lottery. No gifts, just the note. My grandmother started it in 1995 because nobody could afford gifts that year. I still have every note I've got since I was 9. My uncle's ones are the funniest, he writes in rhyme. Very bad rhymes, but always rhymes, and usually about food.