Christmas with the Dead

This morning I dreamed that Mark and I were on a road-trip that ended up at my Aunt Joanne and Uncle Ron's house.  Their house was more a location, because it was located on the Dream North Side of Ridgewood (which in real life is getting developed).  Both have passed away, but that didn't occur to me during the dream -- in fact, I recall noticing that Aunt Joanne looked younger and fitter than my mother currently does.

It was Christmas time.  There was a dream-conglomeration of "extended family members," but Joanne and Ron and Mark were the most clearly there.  My cousin Kevin was there, I think.  The recall is fuzzy, but I suddenly realized that they were setting up altars of some sort.  They were made out of cardboard boxes, a little larger than shoe boxes, decorated with paper and felt.   I want to say they were red, blue, and green, with crosses, stars, and filigree -- kind of like stain glass windows, only with fabric.   There was a main altar set up on a serving buffet, and then a kind of low communion rail about five feet away made up of more decorated boxes lined up on the hardwood floor.  Everyone had their own personal box.  I want to say the boxes were stacked up into a low wall (sort of like cardboard bricks in a preschool), and that there were some larger boxes cut on a diagonal as a form that the smaller boxes could slide into.

The family had gathered to assemble the boxes into a display, and were lined up at the rail.  It was some sort of family ritual, sort of a cross between singing Christmas carols and saying grace.  (In real life they aren't particularly religious.)  I had a few moments where my clothes kept changing--I'd look down and notice I was in a bathrobe, or naked, or that I needed to dress up a little bit.  There was a sense that I needed to wake up and join the party.  Eventually I managed to have the appropriate attire and joined everyone.  

I'm guessing some of this dream comes from last night's discussion of my parent's monster Christmas Tree decorating and a general focus this week on Ancient Egyptian writings to deceased ancestors (spoken prayer offering of a thousand bread and beer, a thousand beef and fowl, and all that is good and pure for a spirit to live on).  It does seem strange to me that I'd dream of my maternal Aunt and Uncle, and not my fraternal Aunt (who has passed the most recently).... but then again, I'm thinking the Family House in the Woods typically involves my mom's side of the family.