I'm an atheist and my partner (Persephone) is a very spiritual type person. We still say grace at dinner time. It's different from a normal prayer because we focus on saying "thanks" to the food that we have. We've done some reading as parents and decided that being thankful for what you have keeps you from becoming indulgent and unhappy.

So what we do is, we hold hands around our oval table and each night a different person (moving clockwise) says thanks to all the food on the table - sometimes the condiments too if we're short on main dishes.

Lately we've decided to modify this a bit to say more thank yous based on the complexity of the life we are eating. If it's a vegetable we say it once:

"Thank you broccoli"

If it's fish we say it twice:

"Thank you salmon, thank you salmon"

If it's a bird we say it thrice:

"thank you chicken, thank you chicken, thank you chicken"

If it's a mammal we say it four times:

"thank you cow, thank you cow, thank you cow, thank you cow"

So far we haven't eaten any amphibians - but if we do, I'm not sure where it would fit in. Maybe two and a half times?

"Thank you frog, thank you frog, thank y ..."

So, yeah dinner time around the Dag table is a bit strange, but it works for us. Does anyone else have any interesting meal-time rituals?