Yes, I do so at home. In particular, since I live unfortunately very distant from any temple. Bit yup, in some of the countries I have been it is not unusual at all. In the case of other traditions, such as some Tibetan, it is part of delay contamination.
I don’t know how widespread it is, but in all the Khruba Srivichai monasteries that I’ve stayed at in the North of Thailand there is a pre-meal ceremony of offering the food to the Buddha before the monks partake of it themselves. It might be compared to the Hindu practice of naivedhya:
Naivedyam means food offered to a Hindu deity as part of a worship ritual, before eating it. As such, tasting during preparation or eating the food before offering it to God is strictly forbidden. The food is first placed before a deity and specific prayers are offered with accompanying rituals. Afterwards, the food is considered as having been Blessed by God, and has officially become the sanctified प्रसाद (prasāda).
Before eating, all of the offered food is placed before the shrine and one of the monks will offer it to the Buddha, reciting:
Imaṁ sūpabyañjanasampannaṁ sālīnaṁ bhojanaṁ udakaṁ varaṁ buddhassa pūjemi.
Then there’s usually a minute’s silence, followed by a dedication of the merit of the offering to one’s attainment of Nibbāna:
Sudinnaṁ vata me dānaṁ, āsavakkhayavahaṁ nibbānaṁ, hotu me anāgate kāle.
And then the monks ask for the leftovers, using the word “maṅgala” (“blessing”, “good omen”, “something auspicious”) for what Hindus would call prasāda:
Sesaṁ maṅgalaṁ yācāma.
The food is then taken to wherever the monks eat, but always leaving one tray behind for the Buddha.
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At my local Thai monastery it is similar. One of the lay people will pick out a selection of the food offerings that have been brought for the meal (alms round isn’t practical here), and present it in front of one of the Buddha statues.
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Thanks for your explanation about the ceremony of the food offerings to Buddha statues/images. It seems offering of drinks/water to Buddha images is not included in the tradition.
again it depends in which tradition. Other than you think there is only one, which of course cannot ever be the case.
Yes, as earlier mentioned by Ficus, households in Sri Lanka offer a small cup of water to a framed photo of the Buddha on a high shelf.
If you mean the Northern Thai tradition, drinks are offered too and are explicitly mentioned in the offering formula:
Imaṁ sūpabyañjanasampannaṁ sālīnaṁ bhojanaṁ udakaṁ varaṁ buddhassa pūjemi.
“This meal of rice, together with curry etc., and pure water, I offer to the Buddha.”
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The chanting does mention the word udaka ‘water’ for offering to the Buddha.
I was finally able to make a more or less proper altar for my consecrated Thai Buddharupa. It is standing on an oak shelf behind the kneeling figures of a monkey and elephant who serve to me as a reminder of the Madhu Purnima celebrated by Mon and Bangladeshi Theravadins. I chose them because I like the story of the Madhu Purnima, and besides the Russian culture also has a honey-themed festival, so that was a good chance to connect Buddhism with my native culture. Beneath the shelf is my wife’s Romanian Orthodox calendar.
For the more uniconically-minded, I have recently hanged a photo of the 19th century Khmer Buddhapada next to a reproduction of Andrey Rublev’s Christ the Redeemer (I love this icon and wanted my wife to have a sacred image in our living room as well). I intend use the Buddhapada as a help for my Budhanussati on Uposatha days.
Finally, last but not least, I wanted my baby daughter to have her very own Buddharupa to accompany her through the early years of her life. As she was born on a Tuesday, I bought her a Bali-made Buddha in the sleeping lion’s position. At His right side there is a Chinese Buddharupa I bought at a Chinese store here in Berlin for no reason at all. At HIs left there is a murti of the Lord Ganesh ji that my Bangladeshi best buddy brought to me as a present. In front of my daughter’s Buddharupa there is a wooden frog I bought on the Khaosan road from a tribal woman: it was so cute I could not resist my urge. So now this frog is a constant reminder of how powerful our sudden urges could be.
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Coincidentally, in the Lamphun monastery where I’m presently staying, the local Pgaz K’Nyaw tribespeople recently decided to erect a Buddha-and-frog shrine.
When I enquired of the frog’s significance they said it represented a frog-like deva and they hoped that propitiating it would ensure plentiful rain, unlike last year when we had quite a drought.
As I’ve been getting drenched on almsround nearly every day for the last fortnight, I guess it’s working rather well.
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https://museumsvictoria.com.au/childrens-week/look-and-listen/tiddalik-the-frog/
thank you so much for sharing the photo of the frog and Buddha, this is deeply meaningful to me.
→ compare this statue of a rain with-holding and releasing dream-time frog, Tiddalik, from Warwick, Queensland, Australia. Some things are universal!
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You are right venerable;, as an anthropologist, I have seen such universality in action in different communities and places. But we know the Dhamma can take many shapes and forms, but it is only one 
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The frog statue seems bigger than the Buddha image! Hopefully raining will not be too big for the people in the area!
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I know this is an old thread but I couldn’t resist posting this of my partner and I and her daughter celebrating our new home in San Sai Chiang Mai Thailand with the house blessing today. Probably my favorite part of this house is the small Buddha room that we have with a beautiful altar, that my Wife assembled. I just wanted to share this and wish everyone Metta and that everyone have a very good week.
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I have noticed there are four other religious images in the second and third tiers in your home altar. One image looks like a Chinese Laughing/Fat Buddha (?) in the second tier; one looks like an important Thai Buddhist monk (?) in the third tier. The other two images are not clear to me. Could you give some information about the essential religious images in your home altar? Thanks.
Some of these are essential only because my partner placed them on this altar.
The small statues are the Chinese Buddha for good luck, a Tudong monk and a famous Chiang Mai bhikkhu my wife chose. The framed items are my wife’s lucky numbers within a kind of Hindu universe context. The sitting LP monk is Ajahn Mun (my choice here). The alms bowl is mine from when I was a temp Samanera in Fang Chiang Mai. My wife is Lisu and so I have the wonderful experience of a tapestry of spiritual experiences with her and her home village. I can say though it was wonderful today chanting at length in Pali for the house blessing.
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This is my home altar. In summer there were fresh flowers there, but now there are no wild flowers and I have no money to buy flowers from the shop, so I have to settle for artificial ones just for decoration.
By the way, I think that people who give recomendations like “You should have a whole room dedicated to altar” or “The Buddharupa should be the highest point in the room” really should check their privilege. (Or their former privilege, if they are monastics). Because many people in the world do not have a spare room for an altar! Many people in my country have only ONE room - not one bedroom, one room, period! Me and my husband live in a room of about 16 square meters - we sleep there, we rest there, we watch movies there, I work there, 'cos I work at home. We change our clothes there, eat there, etc.
And, yes, that’s where the altar is. There’s simply no other place.
And I think it’s okay. It’s okay to be poor, it’s okay to have only one room to live in, it’s okay to set an altar in this very room. Buddha won’t be offended by me undressing in the room where his image sits serenely. 
So I take all these recomendations with a grain of salt. A big one. A very salty one.
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Do you mean the hatted one who’s looking up? If so, this is the Burmese and Thai representation of Upagupta (พระอุปคุต), not a Chiang Mai bhikkhu.
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Listen to Sujato’s talk on Upagato: 2022-10-28 Dharma Seed - Bhante Sujato's Dharma Talks
or read here on Sutta Central.
Bhante, thanks and I’ll have to check with my ภรรยา on that…I may have misunderstood her (wouldn’t be the first time…) and naturally, I am sure you’re right about the figure depicted.
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