I know some people who are glad to be staying home and not having big celebrations. I have an old co-worker who has a huge family and she used to host Thanksgiving every year. She’s not doing that this year and she’s actually very relieved.
I’m glad we’re not going anywhere, it will make the morning a lot less stressful. Our thanksgivings are usually potluck, so the morning of is me rushing to get everything cooked, out of the oven, and in the car so we can get to my stepbrother’s on time…
My sister has been battling cancer for nearly a year (she’s almost there), and now my BIL has a form too (very curable, just waiting for a surgery date). Every summer we go see them, but obviously not this summer.
It was unbearable for both of us. So we decided to meet kind of part way at a very nice rest stop off the highway - very clean, and pretty deserted. It was closer to them than us, and that’s okay. We’ve done that twice. We sit outside, bring lunch and just chat (6-8 feet apart). It makes for a long day, but it was very nice to kick back and almost feel normal.
If we didn’t live in snow country, we might try to do that for Thanksgiving. We will have our own little dinners in our homes, like we always have. But we feel better having seen one another a couple times beforehand.
Perhaps a Thanksgiving picnic for those who can?
So my family, ages 6 months to 87 yrs, 10 households, 3 time zones…
We are having a zoom meetup, together, Thanksgiving Day. Or so we hope. The younger adults are preparing a trivia contest, my parents are going to choose 5 photographs to share and talk about, and everyone will show-and-tell their food (we gave up trying to make it be a meal, time zones!) at some point. We have a standing family zoom meeting just to break up the boredom so we are all getting good at it.
Time limit is 45 minutes because the many littlest people are a lot for their parents to cope with gracefully and my parents honestly won’t be able to hear much but they like seeing everyone.
The people with the new baby are still hoping to fly for Christmas, or the people with the toddler twins want to fly to them – I feel like that’s unrealistic, but possible.
We have just cancelled Christmas, which would otherwise involve 3 generations, 5 separate households from 3 states gathering here, some staying in the house and some at a hotel. It feels odd to count each adult child and spouse/partner as a separate family when they still feel so much like part of my immediate family…but the fact is, they no longer live with us and they bring just as much risk as any outsiders. Part of why everyone suddenly agreed it might be better to skip it this year is that some family friends just had a weekend gathering that they thought was reasonably cautious, each couple (three generations of one family) was within driving distance, they rented a couple of houses to stay in, did a lot of their gathering out of doors, all considered themselves to be quite cautious and tried to be extra isolated beforehand, most had tests beforehand…but the next week, a few people had cold symptoms, another had fatigue, cough, and loss of taste and smell, and now 6 of them have tested positive. I think that was kind of wakeup call for our extended family.
It’s sad but it’s a relief to me to have the decision made. I had felt torn about the older generation wanting to do it and not wanting them to be too isolated, but now that they don’t want to do it, I feel much better.
It was just decided last night that we will be going to my MIL for Thanksgiving. I think it’s insane, but I have to shut up now. MIL is mid-90s. My H will be coming directly from his remote job, where he has A LOT of contact with people in close quarters, some of whom think they are wearing a mask when they wear it below their nose. I’ve asked that we at least eat and do our visits outside, but BIL and his family refuse, and they all think I’m a nut for being so concerned. There will be folks flying in from NJ, IL, me driving from AL, and someone driving from Gainesville (UFL). Oh boy. Wish I could opt out, but my H won’t, so it won’t make a difference to my health anyway.
Oh, and I just saw that AL has more than 1k cases diagnosed TODAY.
I have to say I wince every time I see “we cancelled” Thanksgiving or Christmas. “Cancel” is SOOO negative right now. I get that essentially that is what has happened…but I hope that people can perhaps “reinvent” the day whether it’s a smaller group, just two people or even someone solo. <3
Super interesting visual (with situations of a home, a bar/restaurant and a school) of risk of contagion, and aerosol transmission with various precautions.
This is important for anyone considering a in-home event to see:
https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-10-28/a-room-a-bar-and-a-class-how-the-coronavirus-is-spread-through-the-air.html
(note: the page for me has a lot of white blank space in the middle of the article - keep scrolling to see more content)
^I saw that article yesterday. So good! It might be a good tool for convincing relatives that getting together indoors isn’t wise.
@abasket I can see what you mean about the word “cancelled.” It does feel like a more fraught and negative term these days. It felt like the word I was looking for at the time: we cancelled our previous plans, but it’s true that we haven’t really cancelled Christmas. It may just take me a while to figure out how we are going to celebrate now that we are not having an extended family gathering.
I’m starting to see pandemic themed commercials for the holidays. One for Thanksgiving (maybe Wayfair?) runs through a variety of small decorated table settings - for two to five people - and ends with a video meal. The other for Etsy starts with two grandparents getting a video call and dropping to the floor by the tree to open presents together. Their grandson had drawn a picture of himself and the parents ordered a stuffed doll of the picture from Etsy. The grandson tells his grandmother it’s for her to hug since she can’t hug him.
Restaurants around here San Diego) have started posting their Thanksgiving info. If I still lived in Chicago, I’d order from Prairie Grass Cafe!
^^^ Yeah, I don’t like holiday themed commercials anyway (with a passion I avoid viewing them) - I def don’t want to see any pandemic slanted ones!!!
We’ve been delaying making any decision about Thanksgiving, though we had been leaning toward a “everyone who can get tested and isolate for 5-7 days can gather” plan. I think we’re probably going to shelve that. The numbers are going up, up, up and it just seems like a stupid idea to try to gather right now.
Christmas is a non-issue for us (Jewish), but hoping that sometime this winter it will be ok to gather for one big “here’s to all the things we missed this past year” celebration.
Time will tell.
No Thanksgiving gathering with extended family for us this year. Usually we hit both sides of the family in two states near each other. Lots of teens and young adults (my nieces and nephews) all coming together from across the country? That just won’t work for us. My brother, a doctor, and his wife have also bowed out. First time in over 25 years we won’t spend Thanksgiving with my side of the family!
My immediate family and I might visit just my in-laws around Christmas – we would get tested first and ask them to as well. Of course as soon as we mentioned the possibility of coming, that translated to them that we were coming for sure and to let them know dates asap! Reality is we won’t decide until December – fort., we can drive – 8 hours.
If we go, it’ll likely be a short visit as there’s not much we could do there with them – presuming it’s too cold to eat outdoors. We’re not going to go to museums or holiday markets like we’d do on a normal visit. They are not in good enough shape to do hikes or even much walking outside. I guess we’d watch sports and eat – and two days of that is plenty, lol.
FIL is 85 and in pretty remarkable shape. Still, can’t take for granted how long that will continue so I do hope we can make it there in December.
@abasket thank you for that article. I’ve passed it along to my H to try to convince him to get his family to have dinner and other gatherings outside and distanced. This is what I’ve done all summer long and felt very safe having people over and still had great conversations and socialization. MIL is in FL, so as long as it’s not raining, the weather will be nice. And it’s not a big deal to cook with a mask on, put food into separate serving dishes for each pod’s table, and have tables more than 6’ apart for each pod.
Even our immediate family gathering is not going to happen now. D and her boyfriend were going to fly in, but they decided with cases going up, bf had surgery and will be in a cast that they could not fly. I told our other kid to go to his in laws. It’s a long drive for them.
I keep saying, it’s ok, it’s only this year. And I do believe that. In the scheme of life, it’s ok to sit out for a year.
Looking on the bright side, I don’t have to deep clean the house. I don’t have to figure out what to do with the office that used to be my dining room table. I can order a dinner from a local restaurant.
Things won’t change for Christmas, my daughter said that she is going to organize a virtual secret Santa gift exchange.
@deb922 , ah yes…no deep cleaning! I’m actually looking forward to low key this year.
Not having to rush to/from gatherings means I may actually have time for some of that cleaning and organizing that never seems to get done!
We are having just my FIL (who is in our bubble) and my MIL (who is not in our bubble) for a Thanksgiving dinner on our patio. (FIL and MIL were divorced when my H was young, but they are on good terms). My D20 will spend T-day packing to come home from college and will fly home Friday morning and then quarantine in the back of the house. Christmas festivities will be similarly limited to distanced affairs on the patio as well with maybe a couple aunts and uncles in the mix. It will be quieter than our usual, but I think it will still be nice. I will miss the board games and puzzles we usually do with bigger extended family. Last year we had a blast playing the Resistance and Codenames. Maybe next year.
Rats. New plan. Won’t see our kid till April.
I’m sorry to hear that, @mathmom .