Halloween is next week. Thanksgiving next month. Xmas and whatnot after that.
In these strange times, how are you planning to handle them?
Halloween we usually stay home and give out candy, but I don’t know if trick-or-treating is going to be happening this year. I was joking with my wife if we had a mail slot we could give out candy that way. Could just leave a bowl of candy out for anyone who braves trick-or-treating, but that always just ends up being a windfall for the first kid to come upon it. I suppose I could just put a few pieces in the bowl and refill it between trick-or-treaters, since we will actually be home.
Thanksgiving, it’s looking like we’re just going to have dinner at home and Zoom with the family during dessert or something, I don’t know yet.
I know people see Zoom or Facetime as a better than nothing alternative to getting together with friends and family but I find it deeply depressing. I really hate it. I far prefer a telephone conversation to a bunch of people trying to put on a good face.
Thanksgiving will be just the two of us. Come Christmas our son will be home, if his Navy command permits leave. So that’s something to look forward to.
We’re staying home for all three holidays; no visitors. For Halloween, I bought a ton of candy for my kids to split and we’ll probably just watch movies or play games. They’re teenagers, so they’re not upset about missing trick or treating. No idea for Thanksgiving. I guess I have to figure out how to cook a turkey. For Christmas, we’re going to do it up - tons of decorations and baking all the cookies. We talked about celebrating every Christmas holiday - St. Nick’s Day, Advent, St. Lucia’s Day, whatever. We also talked about picking a country and doing all their stuff - food, decorations, traditions.
The saddest holiday for us will be New Year’s Eve. We have hosted a huge neighborhood party every year for a decade. It started because we all had little kids and it was impossible to find a babysitter. Plus, no one wanted to drive. Now it’s all the adults plus a group of kids who have grown up together. It’s my oldest son’s last NYE at home. No idea what to do. It’s going to be quiet around here.
We don’t think it’s safe to see family this year. I usually go to my Aunt’s for Thanksgiving because it is a very difficult holiday for me, and she is the only person who really gets it. But it’s a six hour drive into a state with a rapidly increasing number of cases and I don’t feel comfortable taking my baby into a public restroom or rest stop. I’m really sad that one of the most important people in my life won’t get to see my infant son. Likewise, I’m sad my son won’t get to meet my husband’s huge extended family at Christmas.
So we are just trying to figure out ways to make it special at home. We’re not used to any traditions in our home… Never had a tree or decorations or anything like that. So we’re asking ourselves what new family traditions we want to start. I plan to fix special meals on the holidays and we can dress our baby up for cute pictures.
One thing I’ve decided is I want to start celebrating Bodhi Day, which is a commeration of the Buddha’s enlightenment on December 8th. It’s mostly a day spent in quiet meditation, so it won’t mean much to a little kid, but I want to start a tradition anyway. I think mindfulness is a good skill to pass along, in the long run.
Easy this year. One daughter, whose house we’ve been going to for Christmas is in Indiana, the other is in Connecticut. My wife is having a knee replacement in mid-November, so even without Covid we wouldn’t be traveling. But I suspect we wouldn’t be anyway since Indiana has a lot of non-maskers.
Word on the neighborhood social media is little if any trick or treating this year, fine with me. And we have done Thanksgiving by ourselves for a long time now, so no change there.
I’m sure we’ll Zoom or Skype at Christmas, we did that with one daughte who was in Germany one year already.
Nada. Normally we take enough vacation days to get the complete 2 weeks off, as the company is closed from December 25th and reopens on January 3rd.
Both December 26th and January 2nd are holidays, so that means two long weekends in a row (25th/26th/27th and 1st/2nd/3rd) that all the shops are closed. This means that the grocery stores will be absolutely mobbed on December 24th and 31st.
We’ll still take my husband’s birthday off (just after the new year), but we won’t be going anywhere for his birthday, for the first time in many years.
This, for us as well. For Halloween we’re shutting off all lights and going “blackout”. Hopefully the few souls out will skip over us.
My extended family is in two camps: Virus dangerous – follow rules, and What virus? – we’re partying! So we’re staying put in our outlying town with no visitors and no travel. We don’t want to run into the ignore-the-virus bunch or any crossovers from them. Due to [boring] medical issues, I can’t travel until late December anyway, so it makes staying at home easier anyway.
Halloween is off. Didn’t even decorate. Haven’t bought any candy.
My sister has already invited everyone over for Thanksgiving, I have not decided whether I will attend, but as of today I’m leaning towards staying home. Even though it’s only a month away, it seems so far away. I don’t want to even try and make plans that far ahead.
All I know for Xmas is that my daughter and her fiance are coming up for a few days. Haven’t given the holiday any further thought.
Halloween for us is about dressing up and going to a bar. That ain’t happening. Thanksgiving is about getting together with my gf’s family, largely elderly women. That ain’t happening. Xmas is a big party we throw at our home for my family. That ain’t happening.
We don’t really observe the fall/winter holidays. But my husband’s company gives all employees Thanksgiving week off. I traditionally take the whole week off, too, so that we can take some brief trip together. After discussing it, we decided to go ahead with it. We stay at a small vacation rental and don’t come into contact with anyone, and spend the rest of the time taking drives around the countryside. Usually we like to find some nice restaurant for one good dinner, but this time we’ll have to stick to takeout and I’ll cook at the house for all other meals.
Normally I carve a pumpkin for Halloween, then take it to my parent’s house in the country, fill it with toilet paper and diesel fuel, and set it alight as the official winter welcome ceremony. My parents usually join us in the field, but my mom is still recovering from her cancer treatments, so we aren’t doing that unless I can convince her to just stay in the house and watch from the living room. I haven’t even picked up a pumpkin or any Halloween candy.
Usually for Thanksgiving we go to my in-laws, which I’ve been really getting tired of. But this year my Father-in-law will be getting his own cancer treatments (shit is going around this year), so Thanksgiving is canceled at their house anyway. My SIL invited us to their house instead, but frankly I’d rather be eaten alive by cannibals than share Thanksgiving with their son’s in-laws, so that isn’t happening. We’re still avoiding crowds, so even if the guest list didn’t include raging assholes we’d likely not attend. So, honestly I don’t know what we’re doing. Maybe we’ll take a day trip to the coast, eat somerhing that I dont have to cook like Pita Pit, and spend the afternoon watching the waves.
Christmas… no idea. Its usually a repeat of Thanksgiving, but my FIL will likely still be in treatment. So. Another big nothingburger.
My wife and I will be spending two nights at a beach house with a deck on the sand, a gas fireplace, and a warm shower the weekend after Christmas. That will likely be the highlight of the entire winter – hell, the highlight of the year.
Nobody’s more fed-up with having to forgo socializing than I am…7 months since I last socialized, 10 months since I last saw my kids. That’s why I get so frickin’ frustrated with people saying they’ll probably get together with family for the holidays. Stop it. Just stop.
…we also know that what’s driving this latest surge are these informal gatherings…Many people have a form of magical thinking. We think, ‘Well, our loved ones are people that we trust. They can’t possibly have coronavirus’…If we’re indoors, we have to wear masks and limit that time, even if it’s with people we love."
I’m sick of this, and the more those Magical Thinkers keep spreading this virus, the longer I’ll be stuck at home and alone. Screw that.
This. I won’t be doing Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas gatherings. One son is 900 miles away, another is a thousand miles away staffing a hospital that is getting slammed by sick Magical Thinkers~risking his health to care for them in their idiocy. But I don’t have an opinion…
We’re in a very rural area, so can simply disregard Halloween.
However, my son-in-law will be in the state with his wife and new baby in just a couple of weeks. There’s no way they won’t swing by here.
Thanksgiving, nobody knows. It was already going to be weird, because some relatives moved away and my grandma isn’t up to hosting as in years past. So months ago, we were asked to host, but …does anybody really want to do this now? I feel like not.
We traditionally host Christmas as well, but I’m not thinking that far ahead at this time.
Yep, this BTW matches surveys that I have seen from the USA where people do wear masks and social distancing at 80% or more levels when going to the stores, that is good. But what is bad is that they also show miserable levels of use of masks and social distancing at family or friend gatherings.
The only thing I will do will be to receive trick or treaters, but outside the home and with small baggies of candy already prepared for they to pick.
We’re looking at renting a house on Martha’s Vineyard and just getting away for a long Thanksgiving weekend. We’ll bring all our own food and walk on the beach during the days or bike if the weather is pleasant enough. We might invite another couple that we’ve met for dinner outdoors with if we can both quarantine for 7 days and test right before.
No plans yet for XMas, but my wife really wants to see her dad. Being Jewish, it’s not a big deal for me.
All of my family is in Chicago, and in past years I’ve flown up there to spend time with them. Since one of my nieces is immune-deficient, family Christmas has been cancelled. This will be the first time in my life I haven’t spent Christmas with the family, and I’m pretty bummed out about it.
This. I won’t be doing Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas gatherings. One son is 900 miles away, another is a thousand miles away staffing a hospital that is getting slammed by sick Magical Thinkers~risking his health to care for them in their idiocy. But I don’t have an opinion…