I LOVE the Zoom over pie idea!!!
I think she’s fooling herself. It started out as a legit bubble. But then my sister got serious covid fatigue and has slowly increased what she’s comfortable doing while continuing to see my parents. I think my parents are lonely and bored since their friends have all hunkered down and they are willing to ignore what my sister is doing. My parents are generally careful so I think they feel they are being safe by seeing only my sister and her family.
We won’t get together for Christmas either, which means the holiday will be very quiet. I’m planning on making baskets for the 4 local relatives’ families to deliver the weekend before. I’ll bake cookies, force some amaryllis bulbs, send toys for the kids and wine for the adults… something to plan! Mostly I look forward to a fun day of socially distanced deliveries.
NPR story about this today - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/10/24/926687031/thanksgiving-in-the-time-of-covid-19-to-grandmothers-house-or-no
We are not doing anything with family this year. To be perfectly honest, I’m actually looking forward to not entertaining and running around like a chicken with my head cut off for a month. My children know and we’ve all just come to except it. Missed my nephews wedding this month, too.
I’ll cook the same meals For the 4 of us, but it will be a breather in all other respects.
We are still at risk. DH still works at his office. Even with all precautions there is still risk. My sons still see their friends and they could get it and bring it home. I just want to minimize it as much as possible.
Thanksgiving is “our” holiday and we love it. No nearby family, but friends who have literally come for decades. We have already let them know we aren’t hosting this year.
That said, we will have the kids here. Our situation is a little weird b/c S lives in London. He is flying home (we have not seen him since last Christmas) and will test as soon as he gets home. Hopefully he will test negative and will not need to quarantine although we are prepared for that possibility. D and SIL will drive here. All of us are careful, but there is some risk of course. We thought long and hard about this and decided to have them here. S will actually be staying until after Christmas.
We will have very low key holiday celebrations this year.
We normally spend Thanksgiving with an aunt and uncle, but they are older than we are and we don’t want to risk getting them sick. IF they invite us, and IF their daughter who is an X-ray tech isn’t coming, we may go and try to avoid other risks for the couple of weeks before then. Otherwise it will likely be just me, my husband, and probably my vegetarian son and his mostly vegetarian girlfriend.
I assume same son And GF will be here for Christmas, and possibly my stepdaughter and her SO. That depends on how safe they are being before then.
We had her to our house once in late spring or summer, and she was a disaster wrt COVID safety precautions. I think she’s taking it more seriously now.
We just cancelled Thanksgiving altogether. We live in New England, it would surely be too cold to sit outside for it, especially with my MIL being over 95. Kid lives separately from us in the walled off basement of the house, and drives his own car. He’s been invited to spend the holiday with younger friends 90 min away. Daughter will stay with the friend’s family that she is now living with. It’s gonna be just me, my husband, and the dog - and woofer is allergic to all poultry, so no turkey for him! What a sad, sad year. And we’ve all go zoom burnout by now.
And on the “we’re being SO careful” front. Friend has TWO malignancies, and is supposedly being SO careful. Except she went to a gift shop to shop for a present for a cousin. In-person. In the mall, where lots of people weren’t masked. I asked, “Why didn’t you just order her something online?” “Oh, it’s easier this way, and I like going into the store.”
We ONLY see people outdoors, and from a distance. No one’s definition of “careful” matches ours. Another friend justified her teenage sons’ summer of partying as “They’re in a very careful pod.” Well, two of that very careful pod just got arrested for holding a huge underage drug and alcohol, no mask party that closed down the local high school. Report was that many of the kids ran from the house - hers among them, I’m sure - in order to avoid arrest. And she would have proudly announced that her family was safe, because her kids were in a very careful pod!
We got a call from our younger son. He’s applied for leave for the Christmas/NYE two week period. His thought was to take a Covid test, quarantine, take a second test and then come up for NYE. I’m thrilled - it’s not a full 14 day quarantine, but in would be over a week. Crossing fingers it works out. (And planning our schedule so that we aren’t exposed during that period either.)
Well said.
Our far away kid is doing most of his work from home. We are wondering if it might not be smart to have him come here mid December and stay until the second week of January. He will test regardless, but it would make the long and expensive trip worthwhile. It’s a thought.
@thumper1 - that is kind of like my S’s situation. He is mostly working from home, too. The longer trip makes sense.
This will not work for family that has to travel…but D2’s boyfriend lives in the same town as his parents and his sister/H/child. Besides a week when they all went on vacation together (and all agreed to basically quarantine for 10-14 days ahead of time) they have only seen each other outside since March.
Their plan is to look at the weather forecast starting the weekend before Thanksgiving and then pick the day/evening that looks the warmest and that will be “Thanksgiving” dinner night, outside. This is central Ohio. They figure that they can buy food supplies earlier and keep the menu to everything that can be prepared with just a day or two notice.
D loves hosting Thanksgiving for family & friends, but she won’t be doing it this year. She is pregnant & due in mid-January, so she told everyone that this year is a no-go for holiday gatherings. We will have our S over for a very low-key Thanksgiving.
Christmas is H’s favorite holiday, and it makes him sad that we will only see D from a distance. He loves to buy/wrap lots of small, thoughtful things, and watching D unwrap in the cold Midwest snow just bums him out. We’ll have S over, which will be nice. He is a germaphobe, so we have felt comfortable having him in our bubble.
My in laws have been pretty solidly isolating, S is unemployed and hunkered down, DiL is working but at a small place w good protocols. S is driving her back and forth to work to keep her off mass transit. My oldest just finally has a housemate, which helps him w finances but we won’t be able to see him until Dec even though he lives in our same city because both he and said housemate travel for work about once a week, so Dec is the first window he can be confident they are clear. Our city is currently the state hotspot.
DH works at a large office. I work from home. My dad was just dx w age-related emphysema and Mom gets pneumonia every year as it is. My siblings have been checking on them from outside, but winter has arrived and won’t be gone until April. One sib is all “you can’t live restricted forever” so he has family gatherings regularly – went vacationing w friends too. Had a scare of close contact and now feels they are bullet proof. Other sib has a new grandchild nobody has ever met in person, and is far away to boot.
Which is all to say, we have no idea what we are doing, but I am sure it will involve despair and disappointment. Zoom calls only get you so much. And when I see everyone else so sure there’s no reason to not gather, I feel like I worry too much. Testing doesn’t tell you if you are harboring a nascent case, only that you weren’t contagious the day it was taken. What functional use is that right now?!
I’m afraid to even ask my parents what they are doing for Thanksgiving, since I can’t do anything about it if I’m upset.
We have had a couple of “Zoom dinners” with my sister and her husband. They have been surprisingly enjoyable! DH sets up our huge (15"x32") computer monitor and we always buy something special to eat, like steak. We’ve agreed to do this once a month. I’m thinking about seeing if my BIL can set up a Zoom session with my parents over the Thanksgiving weekend.
It’s hard when some family members are less careful than we feel they should be. My SIL and her H minimize the threat of the virus. SIL works for a chiropractor - workers & patients don’t have to wear masks (SIL does not). BIL doesn’t wear a mask, either. They plan to rent an Airbnb for Thanksgiving and have my 90-something in laws over for dinner. They think we are overly cautious. I can live with that (literally).
^^^ Why in the work would the chiropractor office not require masking??? It’s a place of health care!!!
I owe you all an update.
After I posted here, I rented an Airbnb house half a mile from my dad’s apartment and invited family to come stay with us there. My dad was delighted. Turns out his reluctance to have us visit had to do with him not wanting to pick up his apartment so we could have a meal there. (Well, okay, dad. Pretty lazy.) I couldn’t figure out how we’d have a meal in a hotel or even a restaurant these days, so I started looking for places to rent and found this house. Yay!
Now for the Covid part.
H and I will drive over. We have been pretty hunkered down. Low risk. Son1 will drive over, maybe with GF. Getting riskier as he is a school teacher who is back in the classroom, but with only four students and surrounded by plexiglass. GF works at home, but her presence does add the risk of her family I am sure. Son2 might drive down. He lives a two day drive away. We sent him and his GF N95s and suggested they fly, but up to him. He works at home and is low risk. His GF works in an office and so if she comes, there will be more risk. (These boys live with these girls, so honestly, they share the girls’ risks.) One brother might drive over with his wife. They both work in offices, so risk. We will for sure get me, H, son1. Everyone else is a maybe in my opinion. (I think my bro will cancel at the last minute.)
When I booked this house, numbers were going down. Thanksgiving was looking pretty good. Now, of course, they are going up.
No, I am not cancelling. My mom passed away a year ago. We are suffering through another family problem I’d rather not discuss. My dad is alone and lonely. His health is brittle. This could be our last hurrah. We will get tested, mask up, and meet. Now that he is not responsible for anything, my dad is looking forward to this.