The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: Captain Cactus on September 29, 2020, 12:38:38 PM
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Hello all:
I knew it was coming eventually: Holiday guilt because we're not getting together with my out-of-state mother for Thanksgiving and Christmas due to COVID-19.
She lives alone, in another state, a 5 hour drive from here. Recently retired. Today she asked if we were getting together for the holidays and I said we aren't getting together with anyone, including my wife's family that lives here in town, on those holidays. All we've been talking about for 7 months is this darn virus, so she knows it's a serious topic. At the same time it's as though she thinks it's ok to let down our guard because it's a holiday and we're entitled to see one another.
Anyone else facing holiday guilt associated with COVID? Share your stories and commiserations below!
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I'm expecting more holiday guilt, even if Thanksgiving and Christmas haven't been brought up yet (mostly because DH's family doesn't plan this far ahead). The guilt is compounded by other family members choosing to gather for the holidays, which means the spotlight of disapproval shines even more brightly on us.
My MIL was already surprised to hear I wouldn't be flying across the country for my dad's wedding. To her it's inexcusable (or perhaps just unthinkable) not to go. While Covid was certainly a deciding factor, I'm not sure I would have gone even if it wasn't. I have strong opinions about climate change and flying for non-emergency reasons.
We didn't see MIL for Mother's Day, but DH's siblings did. We didn't see my dad for Father's Day (before he moved), but my siblings did. My family got together for the 4th of July, we didn't attend. At least we're consistent!
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It probably won't be a big deal for my family (knock on wood). We're pretty low key in general, and while mom likes to get everyone together it rarely happens. When it does happen I usually end up needing to withdraw quite a bit, just because I don't handle it well. Apparently, I am a cat - do not change my routine. Which is interesting when it's my house being used as the gathering spot.
Good luck to everyone.
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I'm actually experiencing COVID holiday relief. It really helps having an immediate family who is on the same page about this.
I really don't enjoy Thanksgivings with my brother & SIL at their house - I always (literally every time I've been there) get migraines every day I'm in their home and it's generally a miserable time. So this year everyone decided it was just too much risk, and I get to skip it with no guilt or drama!
Hanukkah is usually not as bad, since it's hosted at my parents' house, and that means I don't have to travel so far or stay so long (~15 miles vs ~150). My brother & SIL and nephew will not be visiting due to COVID, and we've all agreed not to do a gift exchange since shopping in stores and going to the post office etc. is an additional risk.
The good news is that since I'm so close to my parents, we can see each other for low-key holiday dinners. They're the only people in my 'bubble' that I have seen indoors and unmasked. They also have visited two friends who live in a very low-COVID rural area and are incredibly high-risk (the wife has a clotting disorder and recently almost died from multiple pulmonary embolisms, and the husband has a serious inflammatory blood vessel disease, among other problems). They've all gotten tested multiple times and are very careful so I am confident that we can be a safe little group. Testing is pretty much available on demand here in NYC (they're constantly encouraging us to get tested so they can keep an eye on neighborhood trends), so I can get tested before visiting if I want to.
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Ours started in May or June when my niece and nephew texted me saying they were excited that we are coming home for Christmas! I had to break the news that it ain't happening. It was our plan...in Feb.
My stepfather is a cancer patient, so we cannot go visit them either. We are taking a mellow vacation (long weekend to a lodge) at Thanksgiving though.
My kids can't go back to school yet. Not getting on a plane.
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We're planning on doing a zoom meeting between the different branches of the family during our thanksgiving dinners in different places. :P
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Hello all:
I knew it was coming eventually: Holiday guilt because we're not getting together with my out-of-state mother for Thanksgiving and Christmas due to COVID-19.
She lives alone, in another state, a 5 hour drive from here. Recently retired. Today she asked if we were getting together for the holidays and I said we aren't getting together with anyone, including my wife's family that lives here in town, on those holidays. All we've been talking about for 7 months is this darn virus, so she knows it's a serious topic. At the same time it's as though she thinks it's ok to let down our guard because it's a holiday and we're entitled to see one another.
Anyone else facing holiday guilt associated with COVID? Share your stories and commiserations below!
I’d imagine she’s lonely and scared and wants to feel safe and with people she loves. As a parent she would probably risk her life a thousand times over for her children. I don’t fault her for the desire. People have different tolerances. My family is taking this seriously but wouldn’t even consider not being together for special events. Only I’m missing out because I live in another country. I’d give anything to be with them.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday? I guess that depends on if your family is all WFH and have kids e-learning.
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Our family had a lot of contention about getting together recently before my 86 yo father's heart surgery. 3 siblings live within driving distance, one lives a 2-hour flight away. I voted against her/husband coming, saying Dad will recover from surgery but not from covid and is already fragile. One sister voted for doctor sister to come, saying she must know enough about PPE since she hasn't caught covid despite her more than half time health care job. They bought the tickets anyway, then rearranged the flight to vacation with their (local to them) son out of state, then came two weeks later anyway. Fortunately no one caught covid on the plane or during the visit, but now they feel lax enough to repeat the process over Thanksgiving. I thought the point was to see Dad "one last time" in case of death by surgery, but now seems like they think they're invulnerable.
There is also minor pressure to attend niece's wedding on New Year's, same 2 hour flight away. Dad wants to go but Mom doesn't and I don't, so I don't think any of the three of us will go. My brother and sister will probably both attend, so hopefully quarantine for 2 weeks after returning. A vaccine would be really nice about now.
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I am feeling the guilt a bit already re: Canadian Thanksgiving. It is in about 2 weeks.
Usually either my brother or I would host it. My parents and aunt and uncle would come as well as me, my husband and my brother's family. Both my husband and I think it is too risky to gather with the older generation all of whom are in their 80's and two have COPD on top of that. However, my mom who has mild COPD is the worst about social distancing. I wonder if she and my dad discussed it and decided it was worth it to take chances and visit with their grandkids.
My husband and I will cook a turkey dinner regardless and since my parents live on the next block, I will deliver it to them. So they'll get the food but there will be no get together.
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No guilt from family but it does suck to cancel plans to see them. We were planning on going home to Ottawa (from Toronto) for 10 days around Thanksgiving but with 700 new daily cases in the province (half of them here in TO), those plans have been cancelled.
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I live less than a mile from our family. We had a get together last weekend. 6 adults, 5 kids. The next day my husband received notification of possible exposure from somewhere he had been recently, and a week later he had symptoms and tested positive.
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No guilt from family but it does suck to cancel plans to see them. We were planning on going home to Ottawa (from Toronto) for 10 days around Thanksgiving but with 700 new daily cases in the province (half of them here in TO), those plans have been cancelled.
Buckle up, unfortunately I think it's getting a lot worse before it gets better.
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“But we feeeeel healthy...it shoooould be safe...”. I’ll bet a dollar we’ll see a post-Christmas COVID spike and some people will die as a result of getting together with loved ones for the holidays.
Not getting together will sting on the day of the holiday, but the next day it’ll be over and people will move on.
I haven’t gone anywhere since March. Worked from home. Occasional grocery store every few weeks. Chinese pickup a handful of times. A few picnics outside at my in-laws. Haven’t gone on vacation anywhere, haven’t gone to the in laws condo in New Hampshire. My mother has been out there living her best life on one hand (restaurants, driving in car with people, etc...) and then she talks about being cautious and conservative when she speaks with me on the phone. I have a nasty autoimmune condition and my youngest son has a respiratory thing.
Made it this far, certainly can’t let up at this point or in the middle of winter when everyone is visiting in doors, visiting relatives hugging, etc... my mother isn’t happy but hopefully she’ll come around to accept and understand once we get closer into the winter and closer to the holidays.
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We live 6 and 12 time zones away from our respective families. Not feeling a shred of guilt over not traveling a quarter or a half world away just because it’s Christmas. Video calling is ubiquitous and free, it will do.
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We are doing Thanksgiving in October outside. People will roast their own hot dogs over a fire. It will need to be fast due to bathroom issues.
MIL and FIL may not be happy about it, but we are! They refuse to take even the most minor precautions, so this is all you get! I think the kids will enjoy it.
If MIL and FIL agree to a hard quarantine for Christmas, we could possibly do that in early January (I can't quarantine until school is out right before Christmas). BUT we would have to believe they'll do it. I'm not sure I trust them.
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Nope. No guilt here. It is what it is, and family and friends around us understand how serious it is. Most of us went through 2-week mandatory quarantine (like, a police officer and public health official and nurse escorted you to your home and locked you in), and no one wants to repeat that. Besides, our family lives a 12-hour flight away. My mom and I both flew during the height of COVID (me to get back to my expat job and mom to return home after being stuck abroad for five months), and we know what an anxiety-provoking ordeal it is, especially international flights.
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My mom, who is in her early 80's but really active, usually does Thanksgiving at her house with about 20 people. My sister and I are trying to convince her that it's not a good idea this year. Her reaction was "well, I guess we won't invite X and her daughter". That still leaves 18 people in a smaller house. I pretty much told her that she could either do it with my step sibling's family or with our family and my sister who would have to take public transportation shouldn't come.
She's not happy with me but I'm going to stand my ground on this one.
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We just started talking about it in the last few days. I talked to my mom on the phone tonight and told her we wouldn't be doing any of the usual big family get togethers at Thanksgiving or Christmas. I don't know why, but she was surprised. I explained that it's basically the most unsafe thing we can do, that 1 in 3 people who don't get sick enough to be hostpitalized deal with symptoms that linger for months, and my wife could be pregnant at the time. It isn't worth risking the future health of our child (something that hasn't been studied well) for a couple holiday get togethers. Honestly, I'm not sure if we'll even go to visit at all. We would stay with my sister since she's the only family member I know taking it really seriously. But knowing how other people will likely let their guard down during the holidays means the risk will be higher. I'm inclinded to skip the visits altogether.
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I'm giving in to guilt but doing it as safely as possible. I'm an only child and my parents live 4hrs away with no other family to speak of around them. I haven't seen them since last Christmas and I know they would be devastated if I didn't come this Christmas. They're almost 80 and at this point, their mental well being is as important as their physical. They really don't leave the house much other than groceries and dr visists (all safely masked) so I'm not too afraid of them giving it to me. I plan on being ultra careful in the 2 weeks before I go and will try to make the trip without stopping.
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Lol, no.
I tend to have virtually no guilt about doing what I believe is the right thing to do.
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Whatever happens, there will be no guilt, and I will not guilt anyone to try to get my way. That’s not what we do.
But as that sister that lives far away, and may be left out of small family gatherings, it feels bad. Really bad.
I’m dying to see my family. It doesn’t have to be Christmas, but that’s my last hope of seeing them since the same time last year. I desperately hope we can work out a safe-as-possible visit. I can quarantine beforehand, and drive instead of fly.
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I will be very happy to have an ultra low key 2020 holiday season, with none of the tiresome giant family gatherings and obligatory parties. Fortunately, everyone in my social circle is taking the pandemic seriously.
Thanksgiving isn't a thing where I live, but this is a country where Christmas season traditionally starts in September. Office buildings and shopping malls started playing Christmas music literally on September 1. That hasn't stopped, not even with COVID.
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I have no expectations about Thanksgiving, DD is in Toronto and both Toronto and Ottawa have increasing numbers. Plus now she is working from home half the time and going in to a public-facing job half the time so her exposure is higher. We'll Skype instead.
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For the past few years, my holiday gatherings have been fairly low key with maybe 7-10 people. I'm not sure about Thanksgiving, but for Christmas we'll be pre-quarantining. My son is excited that his Christmas vacation is starting a week early.
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I am really looking forward to a peaceful, calm, low-key Thanksgiving and X-Mas!
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So far I feel like we've been caving in to family pressure on holidays etc. SO is Jewish, and we've had several family gatherings for high holidays and other events. Her parents are still active and social, and don't seem to be as worried as I think they ought to be at their age, but it also makes us feel like stick-in-the-muds for trying to follow distancing/mask rules within the family.
So far we've drawn the line at traveling to see extended family for Thanksgiving, as we have in past years, in part because of an elderly relative up there. I doubt they'll have the usual big gathering, but even if they do, we won't be attending. But assuming SO's parents don't travel up there, they'll inevitably want to hold a local family gathering instead.
Xmas is (of course) all on my side of the family, and that's totally up in the air at this point. My family situation has changed radically over the past year, so things will be different regardless. But my SiL will probably still want to see her adult kids*, which means she and my brother will likely still be coming up from Florida(!) for the holidays. [* or possibly just her son who's local, as her daughter takes COVID way more seriously and may not want to fly home, or contact her far less cautious mother].
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We're planning on doing a zoom meeting between the different branches of the family during our thanksgiving dinners in different places. :P
We've been doing this all along with my wife's family. We've actually "seen" them more than we normally do. It works surprisingly well.
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Yep, got the txt from my sister yesterday.
Her words.
“are we going to attend or are we still too scared of the rona to leave the house”
Pissed me off, this is not the first time she has said it this year.
We go out and do stuff all of the time like work, hiking, biking, paddle boarding, camping, socially distanced BYOE BBQ or picnics with friends and even a 2 week camping trip to Jackson WY.
Meanwhile they are going on vacation in Vegas next week, staying on the strip and hitting the casinos and this is just one of many trips to party with friends they have made this year.
I have tried to explain that we are 15 years older than her (she is mid 30’s), my wife has serious health issues that are particularly bad for covid outcomes and that we are trying to be cautious while still doing stuff but she just responds that we are just scared.
My last response to her was basically that what she calls scared I call looking at the facts, data, using my brain and making an educated decision to avoid an outcome that could have a severe impact on our future health and financial wellbeing and that I am at peace with our choices.
Honestly I am ready to write her off from my life she has been consistently toxic on so many levels.
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I'm sad about missing holidays and not getting to see my family. We're already long distance and it's not the same to do it on zoom. But my region is saying no gatherings at all, so there won't be a thanksgiving dinner and Christmas is still undecided. Usually we host 20 people here, and with social distancing that's just not possible, so if anything it'll just be a very small gathering instead and zoom with everyone else.
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For those of you getting all the awkward thrown at you by rude/inconsiderate/thoughtless relatives, may I recommend Captain Awkward? Her best advice is return the awkward to sender. People who are like that depend on the rest of us to respect normal civility and be given a bye.
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For those of you getting all the awkward thrown at you by rude/inconsiderate/thoughtless relatives, may I recommend Captain Awkward? Her best advice is return the awkward to sender. People who are like that depend on the rest of us to respect normal civility and be given a bye.
Could you share an example? I am normally a peace maker and an easy going type person so find it hard to deal with that type of conflict / situation.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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For those of you getting all the awkward thrown at you by rude/inconsiderate/thoughtless relatives, may I recommend Captain Awkward? Her best advice is return the awkward to sender. People who are like that depend on the rest of us to respect normal civility and be given a bye.
Could you share an example? I am normally a peace maker and an easy going type person so find it hard to deal with that type of conflict / situation.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This might be helpful.
https://captainawkward.com/2020/04/16/link-the-answer-to-all-your-social-distancing-loophole-questions-is-no/
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Yep, got the txt from my sister yesterday.
Her words.
“are we going to attend or are we still too scared of the rona to leave the house”
Pissed me off, this is not the first time she has said it this year.
Have you tried agreeing with her?
"Yes, I am still too scared to lose my wife to Covid. She means the world to me, and I'll gladly trade one Christmas away from family to have Christmas with her for the next twenty."
I suck at writing right now, but you get the idea. I find it kinda takes the steam out of their argument if you straight up agree with them. They may switch tactics; if you can't agree with their new statement, just keep agreeing with their prior one. "You were 100% spot on when you said we were too scared to come. I couldn't have said it better myself." If nothing else, you can be amused at them arguing against themselves.
As for us, not much will change Re: Holidays. We're taking basic precautions, but aren't being overly strict. Reason being, we probably all had Covid already. Wife took care of Covid patients back in July without proper PPE, she got sick, then me, then our two sons (one of whom still can't smell anything); only our daughter didn't have any symptoms that we know of. Wife took two Covid tests (one standard, one antibody) and our youngest took a standard test, all came back negative, so we're still taking at least basic precautions (for example, on long drive we stopped at Arby's, bunch of workers came in to eat right after us and none were wearing masks, so now we won't visit family for a MINIMUM of four days after, probably a bit longer, just in case).
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For those of you getting all the awkward thrown at you by rude/inconsiderate/thoughtless relatives, may I recommend Captain Awkward? Her best advice is return the awkward to sender. People who are like that depend on the rest of us to respect normal civility and be given a bye.
Could you share an example? I am normally a peace maker and an easy going type person so find it hard to deal with that type of conflict / situation.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Just have a canned answer to give people in advance "I'm not willing to take any unnecessary risks, but I will miss you terribly over the holidays."
Don't be the peace maker, nobody is forcing you to, it's just a habit you've cultivated in yourself, and like any habit, it can be broken.
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Fair enough, I guess growing up in an abusive environment molds us and I will be the first to admit it has affected the way I handle situations. I could stand to be a little less of a punching bag for those around me and let them deal with their issues rather than trying to absorb their dysfunction.
Thanks for the free coaching session :)
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Fair enough, I guess growing up in an abusive environment molds us and I will be the first to admit it has affected the way I handle situations. I could stand to be a little less of a punching bag for those around me and let them deal with their issues rather than trying to absorb their dysfunction.
Thanks for the free coaching session :)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
You should definitely spend some time reading Captain Awkward. You may find it quite helpful.
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Hello all:
I knew it was coming eventually: Holiday guilt because we're not getting together with my out-of-state mother for Thanksgiving and Christmas due to COVID-19.
She lives alone, in another state, a 5 hour drive from here. Recently retired. Today she asked if we were getting together for the holidays and I said we aren't getting together with anyone, including my wife's family that lives here in town, on those holidays. All we've been talking about for 7 months is this darn virus, so she knows it's a serious topic. At the same time it's as though she thinks it's ok to let down our guard because it's a holiday and we're entitled to see one another.
Anyone else facing holiday guilt associated with COVID? Share your stories and commiserations below!
No.
On holidays, phone calls/emails/cards are typical of how my family and I "get together" due to the fact that except for one sister all of my immediate family lives ~3000 miles away and I don't fly.
Sometimes I visit my sister who lives ~ 250 miles away.
I enjoy taking the train to visit her and my nieces/nephew.
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I'm sad about missing holidays and not getting to see my family. We're already long distance and it's not the same to do it on zoom.
I have what I call a "hybrid" personality.
Sometimes I like solitude and sometimes to be among people so I'm not sad about not visiting family members on holidays.
May you soon cheer up.
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Guilt no, disappointment yes. We always plan to visit my Dad and step Mom in PA at Thanksgiving. But as of right now PA is on the "no go" list for MA. Hubby is in the military and cannot go to any state that will require him to quarantine for 14 days afterwards per MA "no go" list. He can only go if it is for duty on military orders. I could take my girls and go by myself, but then they would miss 2 weeks of school afterwards since we have to quarantine for 14 days when we return. We live on a military installation and they take this stuff very seriously, they won't except a negative test, you must 14 day quarantine before returning to school on base. So we are disappointed we will not be seeing them this Thanksgiving.
As for Christmas, we normally go to FL to our house (it is currently a rental and always needs something attended to) and stay with hubby's family while we are there. My girls get to see all their old friends and family we haven't seen in a year. But just like above FL is on the "no go" list. I am more disappointed about not getting to FL.
Still hoping these 2 states might be able to turn things around, but I highly doubt it. FL just opened restaurant and bars to full 100% capacity and the Governor said business' don't have to enforce mask mandates. So you can guess what's going to happen in FL in about 4 weeks.
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I live less than a mile from our family. We had a get together last weekend. 6 adults, 5 kids. The next day my husband received notification of possible exposure from somewhere he had been recently, and a week later he had symptoms and tested positive.
Gah!! I'm so sorry.
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No guilt from family but it does suck to cancel plans to see them. We were planning on going home to Ottawa (from Toronto) for 10 days around Thanksgiving but with 700 new daily cases in the province (half of them here in TO), those plans have been cancelled.
Buckle up, unfortunately I think it's getting a lot worse before it gets better.
Yea man, I think you are right.
Last night as my wife and I were discussing what we wanted to do here by ourselves for Thanksgiving, she blurted out "oh no Christmas could be cancelled, too" and started to cry. In 40 years she hasn't spent a single Christmas away from her family so this is going to be tough on her. I'm pre-emptively working on physical distanced options.
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Honestly it's nice to have an excuse NOT to go this year...
I love my family but I do not enjoy spending holidays with them, and I generally spend either Thanksgiving or Christmas with them. Typical family drama and tension that I am sure many others experience at holiday gatherings.
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For those of you getting all the awkward thrown at you by rude/inconsiderate/thoughtless relatives, may I recommend Captain Awkward? Her best advice is return the awkward to sender. People who are like that depend on the rest of us to respect normal civility and be given a bye.
We did this! It was super awkward! But after 6 months of being the civil ones (mostly, I had sorta called it out twice before) I was DONE!
FIL laughed at us for not attending church because people are not wearing masks. Since I am a teacher and had just finished a hellish week of virtual school, I was...on edge. I called him out on it. Then tattled to MIL about the rude behavior we have endured from FIL over the 'Rona. I wish I had said things better, been more calm in my delivery, but I think it was good to clear the air. I will be kind and polite to them, but now he KNOWS that he is going to get called out on it, I suspect he'll stop.
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For those of you getting all the awkward thrown at you by rude/inconsiderate/thoughtless relatives, may I recommend Captain Awkward? Her best advice is return the awkward to sender. People who are like that depend on the rest of us to respect normal civility and be given a bye.
We did this! It was super awkward! But after 6 months of being the civil ones (mostly, I had sorta called it out twice before) I was DONE!
FIL laughed at us for not attending church because people are not wearing masks. Since I am a teacher and had just finished a hellish week of virtual school, I was...on edge. I called him out on it. Then tattled to MIL about the rude behavior we have endured from FIL over the 'Rona. I wish I had said things better, been more calm in my delivery, but I think it was good to clear the air. I will be kind and polite to them, but now he KNOWS that he is going to get called out on it, I suspect he'll stop.
What did he say that made you finally call him out? And then what did you say to him? And then what did he say back to you?
I am super curious because I may need a script to follow...
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I went to college 30 minutes from my parents house. My mother in particular is heavy on the guilt tripping, especially around the holidays. Post college we moved 2 hours away to a town in between both families. The first holiday season that we shared holidays meant we were traveling both directions to see both families on each occasion. That was way too much. We finally decided one family per holiday. Around this time, an opportunity was presented to us to move to Europe for work. So whenever any attempted guilt trips started, my response has always been wait until we move to Europe. That pretty much shut down the nonsense.
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We only ever have fairly small family gatherings but of course this year my entire family planned a big trip to FL for Dec 26-31. From my 85 year old grandpa all the way to the 1 year old great granddaughter.
That is cancelled since FL sucks. We may still visit in laws over t day (5 people all being careful) and we will likely visit my parents over Xmas (2 people being careful). Just depends how bad things are at the time. As two working parents with kids who barely go to school we may also send the kids to my parents for a week or so to do virtual school there.
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We usually try to get together the extended family (siblings + parents) for Christmas but even if we exclude the 80+ set, it would be 5 different households in 5 different states all over the country (both coasts, north, south, and midwest) with varying levels of risk and travel advisories trying to find a place to stay for a week or so in December. I just can't work out how this would be at all feasible, but my sister is holding out hope. Not a single one of our households is able to isolate right now either due to various combinations of jobs, school, and roommates. I suppose maybe there's some way to do it with rapid covid testing? But I haven't come up with anything so far and there's no way to know where the hotspots will be 3 months from now.
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Fair enough, I guess growing up in an abusive environment molds us and I will be the first to admit it has affected the way I handle situations. I could stand to be a little less of a punching bag for those around me and let them deal with their issues rather than trying to absorb their dysfunction.
Thanks for the free coaching session :)
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I grew up in an extremely fucked up environment, it's exactly *why* I value my boundaries so much.
I deeply love my family and adore being close to them...but with boundaries.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
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2 of my kids and one of my stepsons lives locally so we will be getting together. I usually have a big party on Xmas day but won’t this year of course.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
I'm unwilling to visit my parents specifically because I am NOT quarantining. I am OK with taking some risk for myself. I am not OK with placing that risk on my older, at-risk parents by visiting them with my current level of exposure.
In order for me to safely visit my parents for Christmas we would have to pull the kids out of school. They are understandably happy to be back in school, interacting with friends and teachers. They do not want to get pulled out for two weeks before a visit, and likely two weeks after the visit as well because our state would require a quarantine upon return.
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My DD is alternating work from home one week and work a public-facing job one week. And she is 500 km away, and I am not flying, and I'm not staying with her because of her job. It will be a Skype Christmas.
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I'm quietly relieved that my adult children have a solid reason for not spending Christmas with my parents without anyone's feelings being hurt, and extremely relieved that I have a solid reason not to arrange the "surprise" party my mother told me she and my father expected to be provided with for their 60th wedding anniversary in January. And no, I am not going to try to round up a bunch of octogenarians, most of whom I've never met, and get them on Zoom.
I do have a general sadness at not being able to make ordinary, no-expectations trips to see my parents, but I'm too high risk with a household of multiple working adults.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
There are plenty of people who CAN'T quarantine due to school and jobs and other people in their household. Being able to quarantine is a luxury.
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Our family is all over the place and right now alot of our kids are in college so I'd feel more guilty taking the chance and being part of a family spread.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
My child's going to school right now. It's not possible for him to go to school and us to quarantine for the required 14 days to be safe while visiting elderly relatives. So we're not.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
My child's going to school right now. It's not possible for him to go to school and us to quarantine for the required 14 days to be safe while visiting elderly relatives. So we're not.
Exactly. My DD is in a public-facing job and can't self-isolate enough for me to be safe visiting with her. Covid sucks.
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I am still trying to decide what to do for Thanksgiving, which is next weekend here in Canada. No big family gathering, for sure. I might have my Dad, son and sister here for take out turkey dinner on Saturday on the deck. That's about as risky as I am willing to get. I have been WFH, and basically quarantining since mid-March. Not going to blow it now for a made up holiday on the calendar.
Christmas is going to be tougher. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
Forgoing big family gatherings is probably the most loving thing we can do right now.
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I'm quietly relieved that my adult children have a solid reason for not spending Christmas with my parents without anyone's feelings being hurt, and extremely relieved that I have a solid reason not to arrange the "surprise" party my mother told me she and my father expected to be provided with for their 60th wedding anniversary in January. And no, I am not going to try to round up a bunch of octogenarians, most of whom I've never met, and get them on Zoom.
I do have a general sadness at not being able to make ordinary, no-expectations trips to see my parents, but I'm too high risk with a household of multiple working adults.
Oh lord. I would share your relief. I love my parents but trying to throw a party like that is pretty much my worst nightmare. I remember my parents threw a 50th anniversary party for my grandparents and it was so stressful and expensive.
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Hello all:
I knew it was coming eventually: Holiday guilt because we're not getting together with my out-of-state mother for Thanksgiving and Christmas due to COVID-19.
She lives alone, in another state, a 5 hour drive from here. Recently retired. Today she asked if we were getting together for the holidays and I said we aren't getting together with anyone, including my wife's family that lives here in town, on those holidays. All we've been talking about for 7 months is this darn virus, so she knows it's a serious topic. At the same time it's as though she thinks it's ok to let down our guard because it's a holiday and we're entitled to see one another.
Anyone else facing holiday guilt associated with COVID? Share your stories and commiserations below!
You could consider asking your mother to self isolate for 2 weeks, and do that yourself, before thanksgivings/christmas, that way you can get together risk free.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
Aside from all the people who can't for some reason, there are also a decent number of people out there who say they are self-isolating. Except they go to the store. And the hair dresser. And they're eating out at restaurants. Or whatever. A true self-isolation is hard, and there's a lot of people who are too selfish or delusional who will lie about their exposure, deliberately or not.
I'm not truly self-isolating. My risk is fairly low because I'm not going places all the time, but it's not zero. And I'm pretty open about that. If someone is concerned and would prefer not to see me in person, I understand.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
Aside from all the people who can't for some reason, there are also a decent number of people out there who say they are self-isolating. Except they go to the store. And the hair dresser. And they're eating out at restaurants. Or whatever. A true self-isolation is hard, and there's a lot of people who are too selfish or delusional who will lie about their exposure, deliberately or not.
I'm not truly self-isolating. My risk is fairly low because I'm not going places all the time, but it's not zero. And I'm pretty open about that. If someone is concerned and would prefer not to see me in person, I understand.
Yes, exactly. My MIL is this way. She swears she’s self-isolating, then tells my husband about all the places she goes. We wouldn’t trust her word if she said she was quarantining for two weeks.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
Aside from all the people who can't for some reason, there are also a decent number of people out there who say they are self-isolating. Except they go to the store. And the hair dresser. And they're eating out at restaurants. Or whatever. A true self-isolation is hard, and there's a lot of people who are too selfish or delusional who will lie about their exposure, deliberately or not.
I'm not truly self-isolating. My risk is fairly low because I'm not going places all the time, but it's not zero. And I'm pretty open about that. If someone is concerned and would prefer not to see me in person, I understand.
Yes, exactly. My MIL is this way. She swears she’s self-isolating, then tells my husband about all the places she goes. We wouldn’t trust her word if she said she was quarantining for two weeks.
Ugh, that sucks. I'm sorry.
It looks like my husband may be switching jobs within his company so that he'll only be sharing a decent-sized room with only one other coworker (who only socializes with his own wife). Since I work from home and only go out in public for groceries, I've told husband that if he agrees not to go out to lunch for two weeks before Thanksgiving, we can have family dinner with my parents, and possibly both sets of parents (his are retired, one of mine is retired and one works in an isolated office with very strict safety protocols).
My SIL works full-time in a public school district and my niece and nephew are in school and daycare, so unfortunately we probably won't see them in person until two weeks after school ends next spring.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
Aside from all the people who can't for some reason, there are also a decent number of people out there who say they are self-isolating. Except they go to the store. And the hair dresser. And they're eating out at restaurants. Or whatever. A true self-isolation is hard, and there's a lot of people who are too selfish or delusional who will lie about their exposure, deliberately or not.
I'm not truly self-isolating. My risk is fairly low because I'm not going places all the time, but it's not zero. And I'm pretty open about that. If someone is concerned and would prefer not to see me in person, I understand.
Yes, exactly. My MIL is this way. She swears she’s self-isolating, then tells my husband about all the places she goes. We wouldn’t trust her word if she said she was quarantining for two weeks.
We had to finally tell MIL that there's no way we are coming for Christmas. Flying? Cross country? She's in her late 70s, and her boyfriend is in his 80s. She's been pretty good but not all the relatives have been.
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This issue is coming up for us.
My husband just found out his grandmother is not doing well. She hasn't met our youngest son yet. So it came up to come down for Thanksgiving.
But the thing is, if we do, it will ONLY be to see his grandmother. And then we will huddle away somewhere that we are exposed to no other people. We can't go family hopping to see all the other relatives like we usually do. We can't visit my family too. And between my mother and his mother, this will cause gigantic upsets. To drive 20 hours (one way) and not visit everyone is going to cause them a ton of fuss.
So then we talked about just sending husband and son down, while daughter and I stay here. We still can't see that going by without complaint.
His mother is going to want us to go down, and have the normal big family gathering. My mother will want to see us too. His siblings will want to see our kids. Our kids will want to play with their cousins.
It's going to end up being a giant mess of people, and they are going to justify it as OK because "it's all just family".
We just got back from vacation- where we did meet up with my aunt/uncle/cousins- but we all quarantined for 2 weeks before doing so (unemployed/online school; our kids daycare was shut down and I work from home), and we did no other indoor events the entire vacation, everything was outdoors, and all meals made at "home". But the families for Thanksgiving won't quarantine like that because they all have work and in person school.
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I'll be sorry to miss out on a family and friends Thanksgiving dinner - good food, catching up w everyone, taking a swim in the pool.
Oh well.
Guilt? - hell, no - my/our health comes first, Covid could be a death sentence for me. Not going to jeopardize my health and expose myself after 'isolating' for months now. I've been out of the house - twice - in five months. It will be harder on Mr. R. than me, but we may make a couple of garden visits.
It has been too long since I've been out and about, sometimes I just want to throw caution to the wind.
Having a sizeable property makes it possible for my son to visit about once a month or so, w/mask. During the holidays I plan to invite a couple of friends over at different times, the ones who are as cautious as we are - so we can take garden walks and hang out in the gazebo.
Nobody is coming into my house.
We've been sensible and cautious so far - not going to ruin that. X-mas? - cards, calls, dropping off some cookies/gifts.
The weather is usually nice around Christmas - so we can do garden visits too, have a drink, take a walk - bye:).
90% of our friends are cautious and stick with their bubble.
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It's nice to hear from others who share the same plight. My parents are still doing all their normal activities, minus church. Dad works solo out in cattle fields, and mom "only shops early in the morning before other people are out." If they didn't stop in at Wal-mart for "just one thing" all the time I'd feel better about it.
We'd like to drive up for Thanksgiving, but my uncle who went to Sturgis and then showed up at my parents because he got into a fight with his girlfriend, will likely show up again whether or not he's invited. And if he does, I will need to pack up the kids and car and drive the 16 hours home without contacting him or my parents, who don't have the backbone to turn him away.
I think my folks are relying on me not wanting to offend my uncle, and the improbability that we'll drop everything and leave.
The whole mess can't be worth it.
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It's nice to hear from others who share the same plight. My parents are still doing all their normal activities, minus church. Dad works solo out in cattle fields, and mom "only shops early in the morning before other people are out." If they didn't stop in at Wal-mart for "just one thing" all the time I'd feel better about it.
We'd like to drive up for Thanksgiving, but my uncle who went to Sturgis and then showed up at my parents because he got into a fight with his girlfriend, will likely show up again whether or not he's invited. And if he does, I will need to pack up the kids and car and drive the 16 hours home without contacting him or my parents, who don't have the backbone to turn him away.
I think my folks are relying on me not wanting to offend my uncle, and the improbability that we'll drop everything and leave.
The whole mess can't be worth it.
Two options:
Have your parents come to you.
Bow out entirely and video call.
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Mine has turned out okay. My parents are going to get together with my aunt and uncle - all are 80 +. My husband and I are going to cook a turkey dinner and live on leftovers afterwards. I live on the next block from my parents so I offered to deliver the dinner to them. But mom wants leftovers so she'll look around for a small turkey. My husband spoke to my sister-in-law and told them we weren't have anyone over.
Our covid numbers have gone up dramatically from the summer and I'd say we are in the 2nd wave. No guilt now. The daily count is too high for that.
Not sure how we'll handle Halloween yet but for Remembrance Day we'll watch it on tv from home. Usually we would go to a service at the local cenotaph.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
Aside from all the people who can't for some reason, there are also a decent number of people out there who say they are self-isolating. Except they go to the store. And the hair dresser. And they're eating out at restaurants. Or whatever. A true self-isolation is hard, and there's a lot of people who are too selfish or delusional who will lie about their exposure, deliberately or not.
I'm not truly self-isolating. My risk is fairly low because I'm not going places all the time, but it's not zero. And I'm pretty open about that. If someone is concerned and would prefer not to see me in person, I understand.
Yes, exactly. My MIL is this way. She swears she’s self-isolating, then tells my husband about all the places she goes. We wouldn’t trust her word if she said she was quarantining for two weeks.
Then there is my mother, who thinks the whole thing is a hoax (still!) and will be mad and very mean about the fact that I am not willing to come spend the holidays with her. She has not modified her lifestyle one bit, including refusing to wear a mask, goes to parties, travels, etc. That's gonna be a no from me.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
Aside from all the people who can't for some reason, there are also a decent number of people out there who say they are self-isolating. Except they go to the store. And the hair dresser. And they're eating out at restaurants. Or whatever. A true self-isolation is hard, and there's a lot of people who are too selfish or delusional who will lie about their exposure, deliberately or not.
I'm not truly self-isolating. My risk is fairly low because I'm not going places all the time, but it's not zero. And I'm pretty open about that. If someone is concerned and would prefer not to see me in person, I understand.
Yes, exactly. My MIL is this way. She swears she’s self-isolating, then tells my husband about all the places she goes. We wouldn’t trust her word if she said she was quarantining for two weeks.
Then there is my mother, who thinks the whole thing is a hoax (still!) and will be mad and very mean about the fact that I am not willing to come spend the holidays with her. She has not modified her lifestyle one bit, including refusing to wear a mask, goes to parties, travels, etc. That's gonna be a no from me.
Has she changed her mind at all now there are so many White House cases?
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
Aside from all the people who can't for some reason, there are also a decent number of people out there who say they are self-isolating. Except they go to the store. And the hair dresser. And they're eating out at restaurants. Or whatever. A true self-isolation is hard, and there's a lot of people who are too selfish or delusional who will lie about their exposure, deliberately or not.
I'm not truly self-isolating. My risk is fairly low because I'm not going places all the time, but it's not zero. And I'm pretty open about that. If someone is concerned and would prefer not to see me in person, I understand.
Yes, exactly. My MIL is this way. She swears she’s self-isolating, then tells my husband about all the places she goes. We wouldn’t trust her word if she said she was quarantining for two weeks.
Then there is my mother, who thinks the whole thing is a hoax (still!) and will be mad and very mean about the fact that I am not willing to come spend the holidays with her. She has not modified her lifestyle one bit, including refusing to wear a mask, goes to parties, travels, etc. That's gonna be a no from me.
Has she changed her mind at all now there are so many White House cases?
Nope. She didn't even change her mind when her teenage grandson contracted it and was hospitalized.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
Aside from all the people who can't for some reason, there are also a decent number of people out there who say they are self-isolating. Except they go to the store. And the hair dresser. And they're eating out at restaurants. Or whatever. A true self-isolation is hard, and there's a lot of people who are too selfish or delusional who will lie about their exposure, deliberately or not.
I'm not truly self-isolating. My risk is fairly low because I'm not going places all the time, but it's not zero. And I'm pretty open about that. If someone is concerned and would prefer not to see me in person, I understand.
Yes, exactly. My MIL is this way. She swears she’s self-isolating, then tells my husband about all the places she goes. We wouldn’t trust her word if she said she was quarantining for two weeks.
Then there is my mother, who thinks the whole thing is a hoax (still!) and will be mad and very mean about the fact that I am not willing to come spend the holidays with her. She has not modified her lifestyle one bit, including refusing to wear a mask, goes to parties, travels, etc. That's gonna be a no from me.
Has she changed her mind at all now there are so many White House cases?
Nope. She didn't even change her mind when her teenage grandson contracted it and was hospitalized.
Ouch. I'm sure she has many redeeming qualities, but I don't like your mother much based on that.
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Not keen on holiday visiting the vast majority of our family who watch too much FoxNews. There will be too much pro-Trump conversation anyhow. No masks of course. Everyone avoiding masks this year when they could. People who wear masks are "scared" we were told earlier this year. One of the most opinionated is an eldery cancer survivor. A house full of people eat, talking and laughing - which we will dearly miss.
We attended a wedding earlier this year. Wall to wall unmasked people. Nope. We left soon after the vows (20 mins total). Another part of the family is having a wedding too. Also no-mask types. They will wear them until the wedding venue stops enforcing masks I'm sure. Nope. We'll USPS a card and a gift to them.
My parents have been careful all year. They are elderly and want to see us and we want to see them. Still, DW and I have public facing jobs. Our teen attend public school and our other adult child works a public facing job. We'd feel terrible if either of the relatives caught something from us.
No idea how this season will unfold. Probably many Zoom visits and staying home.
DW, myself and our younger teen will be okay with that. Our adult child is having a hard time with all the isolation. That one is old enough to make their own decisions and wouldn't be surprised if they hopped into their own car and headed to the gathering on their own. They are an adult so...
Remains to be seen if my parents will go out of state to stay with my sibling for a week or so. Sibling is their favorite, sibling's children are their favorites too. I wonder what kind of leaps of logic will be required to explain that away after a year of being careful. Sibling and family have all been active and out of the house for months (jobs, school, Trump supporters so not mask wearers if they can avoid it).
I need less Trump. ;)
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
Aside from all the people who can't for some reason, there are also a decent number of people out there who say they are self-isolating. Except they go to the store. And the hair dresser. And they're eating out at restaurants. Or whatever. A true self-isolation is hard, and there's a lot of people who are too selfish or delusional who will lie about their exposure, deliberately or not.
I'm not truly self-isolating. My risk is fairly low because I'm not going places all the time, but it's not zero. And I'm pretty open about that. If someone is concerned and would prefer not to see me in person, I understand.
Yes, exactly. My MIL is this way. She swears she’s self-isolating, then tells my husband about all the places she goes. We wouldn’t trust her word if she said she was quarantining for two weeks.
Then there is my mother, who thinks the whole thing is a hoax (still!) and will be mad and very mean about the fact that I am not willing to come spend the holidays with her. She has not modified her lifestyle one bit, including refusing to wear a mask, goes to parties, travels, etc. That's gonna be a no from me.
Has she changed her mind at all now there are so many White House cases?
Nope. She didn't even change her mind when her teenage grandson contracted it and was hospitalized.
Ouch. I'm sure she has many redeeming qualities, but I don't like your mother much based on that.
Welcome to the club.
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Oh yes. Totally stressing over this. I always host (which I honestly detest and find very stressful) because of our house and I'm the most organized. But, I don't want my sister and her family over. They travel and do things without masks and her 3 kids (2 of which run track without masks) will be in school the day before Thanksgiving. My Dad, who lives alone, mostly wears a mask, except when he doesn't (at restaurants and hanging out with friends). We haven't been inside a restaurant since early March (apart from picking up take out). We get the "we aren't going to stop living our lives" crap from my sister (who is traveling 8+ hours to Florida for fall break right now). So f'king condescending. Well, neither are we, but you can be smart about it. I cannot wait until January and I don't have to think about it for another year. This happens every year, but this year is worse. I was going to start traveling over the holidays so I wouldn't have to deal with it all, but that will have to wait.
I like the hot dogs around a fire pit idea that someone brought up. Totally might do that one for "Thanksgiving" in early November before it gets too cold.
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Oh yes. Totally stressing over this. I always host (which I honestly detest and find very stressful) because of our house and I'm the most organized. But, I don't want my sister and her family over. They travel and do things without masks and her 3 kids (2 of which run track without masks) will be in school the day before Thanksgiving. My Dad, who lives alone, mostly wears a mask, except when he doesn't (at restaurants and hanging out with friends). We haven't been inside a restaurant since early March (apart from picking up take out). We get the "we aren't going to stop living our lives" crap from my sister (who is traveling 8+ hours to Florida for fall break right now). So f'king condescending. Well, neither are we, but you can be smart about it. I cannot wait until January and I don't have to think about it for another year. This happens every year, but this year is worse. I was going to start traveling over the holidays so I wouldn't have to deal with it all, but that will have to wait.
I like the hot dogs around a fire pit idea that someone brought up. Totally might do that one for "Thanksgiving" in early November before it gets too cold.
So, you're not hosting this year, are you?
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Oh yes. Totally stressing over this. I always host (which I honestly detest and find very stressful) because of our house and I'm the most organized. But, I don't want my sister and her family over. They travel and do things without masks and her 3 kids (2 of which run track without masks) will be in school the day before Thanksgiving. My Dad, who lives alone, mostly wears a mask, except when he doesn't (at restaurants and hanging out with friends). We haven't been inside a restaurant since early March (apart from picking up take out). We get the "we aren't going to stop living our lives" crap from my sister (who is traveling 8+ hours to Florida for fall break right now). So f'king condescending. Well, neither are we, but you can be smart about it. I cannot wait until January and I don't have to think about it for another year. This happens every year, but this year is worse. I was going to start traveling over the holidays so I wouldn't have to deal with it all, but that will have to wait.
I like the hot dogs around a fire pit idea that someone brought up. Totally might do that one for "Thanksgiving" in early November before it gets too cold.
I've turned into the hoster, because of my house. Difference is that I don't mind. Just because you have the big house or whatever doesn't mean you have to host. You also don't need to answer the phone, read the emails/texts, etc. If you don't want to host, then don't. They will not actually die because of it.
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Update from OP:
Things are starting to sink in for all parties (at least in my circle). Fortunately the CDC and the local news stations started addressing this very topic, ie "What should Thanksgiving look like this year", etc...
I'm not happy about the situation but I'm glad that we addressed things early on... she was upset, pouted, and came to the conclusion that this is probably best for everyone. Addressing it sooner than right before the holidays was a good move... gives everyone a chance to get used to the idea before emotions ran too high.
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Whatever you decide stick to your guns.
Friend of a friend story was told to me about an at-risk demographic person who just had to go to a social gathering. Just couldn't miss it.
Also couldn't miss the family gathering that would happen a week or two later. In fact the second one was more important than the first one.
Yep, you guessed it. Caught COVID at the first one from someone who should have stayed home and isolated.
Then the friend of the friend attended the second one but literally had to stay out in their car and visit from there b/c they were sick!
All they could do was wave and talk on the phone to the party participants who should have delayed their gathering b/c of COVID.
Delayed gratification is an important skill...
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Whatever you decide stick to your guns.
Friend of a friend story was told to me about an at-risk demographic person who just had to go to a social gathering. Just couldn't miss it.
Also couldn't miss the family gathering that would happen a week or two later. In fact the second one was more important than the first one.
Yep, you guessed it. Caught COVID at the first one from someone who should have stayed home and isolated.
Then the friend of the friend attended the second one but literally had to stay out in their car and visit from there b/c they were sick!
All they could do was wave and talk on the phone to the party participants who should have delayed their gathering b/c of COVID.
Delayed gratification is an important skill...
It sure is! It's a skill I was born with, always been good at putting off my own gratification/happiness, etc... and it has served me well. If there was a marshmallow test when I was a kid I would have passed :)
At the same time, I've always longed to be carefree, and share the camaraderie of those who don't delay gratification... they seem to have more fun, albeit generally irresponsible.
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Oh yes. Totally stressing over this. I always host (which I honestly detest and find very stressful) because of our house and I'm the most organized. But, I don't want my sister and her family over. They travel and do things without masks and her 3 kids (2 of which run track without masks) will be in school the day before Thanksgiving. My Dad, who lives alone, mostly wears a mask, except when he doesn't (at restaurants and hanging out with friends). We haven't been inside a restaurant since early March (apart from picking up take out). We get the "we aren't going to stop living our lives" crap from my sister (who is traveling 8+ hours to Florida for fall break right now). So f'king condescending. Well, neither are we, but you can be smart about it. I cannot wait until January and I don't have to think about it for another year. This happens every year, but this year is worse. I was going to start traveling over the holidays so I wouldn't have to deal with it all, but that will have to wait.
I like the hot dogs around a fire pit idea that someone brought up. Totally might do that one for "Thanksgiving" in early November before it gets too cold.
So, you're not hosting this year, are you?
I am not planning on hosting. Nobody has mentioned anything yet. I'm guessing that case numbers will just continue to creep up (we are in TN, so loads of anti-maskers) and it will be more evident how unsafe it is.
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For those of you in the US and thinking of having get-togethers over Thanksgiving, consider that Canada had our Thanksgiving 2 weeks ago and is now suffering a major spike in cases - likely as a direct result.
Stay safe. Stay home.
Halloween is Saturday! Thanksgiving is just under a month away. I am fully expecting even more of a surge in cases in my area in about 2 weeks. (We are already surging, but too many have bought the "its just the flu" line)
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For those of you in the US and thinking of having get-togethers over Thanksgiving, consider that Canada had our Thanksgiving 2 weeks ago and is now suffering a major spike in cases - likely as a direct result.
Stay safe. Stay home.
Halloween is Saturday! Thanksgiving is just under a month away. I am fully expecting even more of a surge in cases in my area in about 2 weeks. (We are already surging, but too many have bought the "its just the flu" line)
Halloween is cancelled in Toronto this year.
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For those of you in the US and thinking of having get-togethers over Thanksgiving, consider that Canada had our Thanksgiving 2 weeks ago and is now suffering a major spike in cases - likely as a direct result.
Yeah, some areas of the US have insanely high spread right now :-S I read yesterday that South Dakota was seeing positivity rates of over 40%. Which is NUTS. People in New York got upset when we went over 1%!
We are still going ahead with our local plans here (be extra careful for two weeks prior, everyone get tested, five people for dinner on Thanksgiving with no traveling) but in my area things are still very controlled with not a lot of cases, none of us go to school or work or use transit regularly, and we're watching the numbers very carefully. And the two families getting together work in microbiology and public health/infectious disease at a hospital that's done a lot of COVID work, so I'm not worried that someone is secretly doing something dumb, LOL.
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Whatever you decide stick to your guns.
Friend of a friend story was told to me about an at-risk demographic person who just had to go to a social gathering. Just couldn't miss it.
Also couldn't miss the family gathering that would happen a week or two later. In fact the second one was more important than the first one.
Yep, you guessed it. Caught COVID at the first one from someone who should have stayed home and isolated.
Then the friend of the friend attended the second one but literally had to stay out in their car and visit from there b/c they were sick!
All they could do was wave and talk on the phone to the party participants who should have delayed their gathering b/c of COVID.
Delayed gratification is an important skill...
It sure is! It's a skill I was born with, always been good at putting off my own gratification/happiness, etc... and it has served me well. If there was a marshmallow test when I was a kid I would have passed :)
At the same time, I've always longed to be carefree, and share the camaraderie of those who don't delay gratification... they seem to have more fun, albeit generally irresponsible.
Me too. Spent all summer hearing about the adventures and travels of people we know who refused to stay home. We wanted to be doing the same things but felt the responsible thing was to stay home or at least away from everyone else. So we did and have had a quiet year. We're "over" COVID-life but still taking all the recommended precautions as our county's current numbers climb higher than any time this year.
Like Jules said of their piece of the world - loads of no-maskers here too.
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For those of you in the US and thinking of having get-togethers over Thanksgiving, consider that Canada had our Thanksgiving 2 weeks ago and is now suffering a major spike in cases - likely as a direct result.
Stay safe. Stay home.
We are actually going on a weekend getaway right before Thanksgiving. But we'll be staying in a little lodge and eating sandwiches and getting takeout. Going for hikes and beach walks if my effing knee is better by then. No gatherings.
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The hardest one for me will be Christmas. It has always been a day for a big family gathering. And it will be way too cold to sit outside.
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So, we're doing a small trick or treat, all family, same street, three households, plus outside with masks. A risk, but not worse than going to the grocery store I think, and we're not spreading it outside our community. Apart from that, all our holidays will be over Zoom.
What I can't fathom is that my uncle, aunt and cousins are flying up from Texas to visit people over Christmas! Who the heck is flying for non emergency purposes these days?! I knew they weren't being the safest with the FB pictures of eating out and going on vacation, but this is another level. And my mom wants me to go see them! I only asked her about when I should take off work for the holidays so we could schedule Zoom meetings. And now she wants me to go see them in person! We don't even see our family on the same street inside, let alone people from another state who just flew. I just really hope my young cousins don't get it.
Christmas is normally very big for my husband's family, with around 50 people attending. Thankfully that's cancelled. I'm glad we're not put in the position to have to say no.
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Can't the mutual parties quarantine hard for ~7 days prior to meeting up for the holiday?
I'm a bit baffled this isn't the majority opinion for those who have close family within driving distance (up quarantine to 10-14 days if you want). I'd assume if you're unwilling to visit your parents, you're probably already working from home and not going to the office- basically already quarantining anyway. I get not wanting a big extended family gathering if you don't 100% trust everybody, but I'll be visiting my parents.
Aside from all the people who can't for some reason, there are also a decent number of people out there who say they are self-isolating. Except they go to the store. And the hair dresser. And they're eating out at restaurants. Or whatever. A true self-isolation is hard, and there's a lot of people who are too selfish or delusional who will lie about their exposure, deliberately or not.
I'm not truly self-isolating. My risk is fairly low because I'm not going places all the time, but it's not zero. And I'm pretty open about that. If someone is concerned and would prefer not to see me in person, I understand.
This! So many friends, family, neighbors, coworkers engaged in magical thinking. The list of “exceptions” eviscerates the entire point. I don’t pretend to know what the answer is, but this pandemic has clearly demonstrated that we cannot rely upon science and facts to overcome emotions. “But I want to...” reigns supreme, and it is only going to intensify over the holidays. Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
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I am flying to see my family for christmas because I am not going to be alone for christmas. To reduce the risk I am going to work from home the week before. My parents are to young to be in a risk group and it will only be my parents, my brother and maybe my sisters family. My parents live in a little village. My family is more outgoing than I am and my sister is a nurse so they are probably a lot more exposed when they meet her. I am actually going to stay three weeks because I have only visited once this year. I drove during the summer but I don’t want to drive 1800 km one way during winter.
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According to a study from IATA the risk for transmission in the air is low. https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/pr/2020-09-08-012/ Our health authorities confirmed that their tracing has not found any transmission related to flights. According to the study the fact that the air is recirculated is one of the reasons behind the recirculation.
I will do my best to lower contacts before and during the flights but christmas is not negotiable for me if I am not sick. I have cancelled all other family related trips.
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According to a study from IATA the risk for transmission in the air is low. https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/pr/2020-09-08-012/ Our health authorities confirmed that their tracing has not found any transmission related to flights. According to the study the fact that the air is recirculated is one of the reasons behind the recirculation.
I will do my best to lower contacts before and during the flights but christmas is not negotiable for me if I am not sick. I have cancelled all other family related trips.
Do you have a layover? I flew last month, and while the airlines are trying to convince everyone that the air in the plane is cleaner than pretty much everywhere (and it very well could be), the airports themselves are a little more troubling. Almost everyone walks around the airport with the mask near their face, but not covering the important parts. People don't distance when lining up for things. In the large layover airport, I could get reasonably far from these people until it was time to get on the plane, but my return trip through a small airport was absolutely packed with people and no way to distance. It was mentally much more difficult than I was prepared for (and I was flying to be alone in the woods for a week - I would not feel comfortable flying and then visiting my parents, but mine sound older than yours).
I'm not saying you shouldn't fly - it sounds like you've evaluated the risks and are good - I'd just try to be prepared in case it is mentally more challenging than you expect.
I remember being sure that spending Christmas alone would be awful, but when I first tried it, I realized that it was just another day, and that I could make it as nice as I wanted. I'm more introverted than most though, so I accept that others may find it harder.
I agree - I have no particular attachment to Christmas day (except that I have been there Christmas mornings for every year of my nephew's life, and it will be disappointing to miss that this year). I would accept any other day to see my family, if I could just see them this year. That's all I want. As a childless single person 800 miles from the rest of my immediate family, it's hard to be away for so long.
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According to a study from IATA the risk for transmission in the air is low. https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/pr/2020-09-08-012/ Our health authorities confirmed that their tracing has not found any transmission related to flights. According to the study the fact that the air is recirculated is one of the reasons behind the recirculation.
I will do my best to lower contacts before and during the flights but christmas is not negotiable for me if I am not sick. I have cancelled all other family related trips.
Do you have a layover? I flew last month, and while the airlines are trying to convince everyone that the air in the plane is cleaner than pretty much everywhere (and it very well could be), the airports themselves are a little more troubling. Almost everyone walks around the airport with the mask near their face, but not covering the important parts. People don't distance when lining up for things. In the large layover airport, I could get reasonably far from these people until it was time to get on the plane, but my return trip through a small airport was absolutely packed with people and no way to distance. It was mentally much more difficult than I was prepared for (and I was flying to be alone in the woods for a week - I would not feel comfortable flying and then visiting my parents, but mine sound older than yours).
I'm not saying you shouldn't fly - it sounds like you've evaluated the risks and are good - I'd just try to be prepared in case it is mentally more challenging than you expect.
I remember being sure that spending Christmas alone would be awful, but when I first tried it, I realized that it was just another day, and that I could make it as nice as I wanted. I'm more introverted than most though, so I accept that others may find it harder.
I agree - I have no particular attachment to Christmas day (except that I have been there Christmas mornings for every year of my nephew's life, and it will be disappointing to miss that this year). I would accept any other day to see my family, if I could just see them this year. That's all I want. As a childless single person 800 miles from the rest of my immediate family, it's hard to be away for so long.
I have a short layover long enough to changes planes. Here the air traffic is about 20 % of that last year at the same time so I don’t expect it to be that crowded in the airports. Maybe at the arrival airport but I am flying with only handluggage so it will take a minute to pass through. I am also flying a week before christmas to avoid the crowds and staying longer than normally to avoid the homecoming crowds. I am sure I will find it pretty uncomfortable due to social distancing aspects. I am taking public transport to work once or twice a week so I am living with the discomfort every week.
My parents are in the early sixties without any of the risk factors so I might have done differently if they were in a risk group. They are also totally ok with it. Even though they take precautions and live in the middle of nowhere, they are normally meeting more people in a week than I.
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If I was planning to fly I would probably get one of those plastic face shields to over my mask. And make sure you take hand sanitizer and wipes.
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My mom dropped the "I miss my kids" line earlier this month. I work on Thanksgiving anyway, so she knows Thanksgiving sometimes just doesn't happen.
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If I was planning to fly I would probably get one of those plastic face shields to over my mask. And make sure you take hand sanitizer and wipes.
I always have hand sanitizer in my bag nowadays.
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Aside from all the people who can't for some reason, there are also a decent number of people out there who say they are self-isolating. Except they go to the store. And the hair dresser. And they're eating out at restaurants. Or whatever. A true self-isolation is hard, and there's a lot of people who are too selfish or delusional who will lie about their exposure, deliberately or not.
I'm not truly self-isolating. My risk is fairly low because I'm not going places all the time, but it's not zero. And I'm pretty open about that. If someone is concerned and would prefer not to see me in person, I understand.
That's my entire family. Except my brother. Not that he's isolating. He's just willing to admit that he's not.
My dad was trying to explain to me that I should get in the car and go get takeout during quarantine so that I don't have to share a kitchen with him. Uh, thanks Dad, but that's not actually how a quarantine works. He starting mansplaining to me that "common sense" says going to get drive-through fast food is perfectly safe. We're gonna find somewhere else to quarantine.
My mom tells me she's being safe too. She was just a vendor at a 150 booth artisan fair. But it was outside, therefore safe. Uh, Mom, I think in GA that could quickly turn into a super-spreader event, but I wasn't there, so use your best judgement. I guess?
I don't know how to assess how safe my friends are being without asking them to fill out a questionnaire about what they consider to be safe distancing practices. Everyone has their own "little" compromises that they're willing to take that they're convinced are no big deal.
There's a lot less talk of inside vs outside in this country (but I'm in a place with effectively no corona virus circulating, so we're in the process of opening). What kind of magic does being outdoors have?
How do you define your bubble? You have a list of friends/family members that you allow yourself to interact with?
I'm having some anxiety about going back to the US and expectations that we should probably visit with family and friends. Thanks OP for starting this thread.
EDITS: Always have one more thing to add, and also spelling.
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What kind of magic does being outdoors have?
Ventilation. I've been led to believe that good ventilation helps exchange the air and prevent spread.
Of course, lots of people believe they are "immune" if they are outside, which is not the case. You still need to wear masks and distance, but your risk is a lot lower than being indoors.
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What kind of magic does being outdoors have?
Ventilation. I've been led to believe that good ventilation helps exchange the air and prevent spread.
Of course, lots of people believe they are "immune" if they are outside, which is not the case. You still need to wear masks and distance, but your risk is a lot lower than being indoors.
To embellish further, the risk of infection is not that one stray virus gets in your body. It takes some (unknown, and likely variable depending upon your own immune system) number of them to take hold and start replicating in your body sufficiently to get you sick, or at least contagious. Ventilation disperses aerosols that may contain concentrated virus. Maybe you still inhale one or two of them, but not enough to infect you, unless you remain exposed to an infected person for an extended time, or perhaps if you directly ingest droplets from sneezing/coughing/talking, especially in the absence of masks and distance that inhibit much of the droplet-based transmission.
It's also thought, but not proven, that a lower initial viral load may cause your infection to be less severe.
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We're going to be faced with the holiday dilemma as well soon. I didn't think we'd have much to worry about, as we're across the country from most of our family and don't gather with them for Thanksgiving or Christmas anymore. We do often see a group of good friends, but as they're having out-of-town relatives over for Thanksgiving we're going to eschew that.
However, I just found out that my mother is coming in to town for about a month to be with her ailing mother, as allowed by the nursing home. I plan to invite her over to our small gathering (just my family and MIL), but am going to have to be a bit wary of how we do it; my mother's husband keeps them steeped in a 24-hour bath of Fox News and Trump tweets, and I think I'm going to have to set some very clear ground rules. I know that my mother was taking the pandemic seriously at first (at odds with StepF) but 7 months of this may have changed that.
Plus, she's staying at the house of other relatives whom I know are also Trump voters. They are also likely inviting us over during my mother's stay. I'm going to have to do some research into how seriously they are taking this and what their potential level of exposure is.
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We're going to be faced with the holiday dilemma as well soon. I didn't think we'd have much to worry about, as we're across the country from most of our family and don't gather with them for Thanksgiving or Christmas anymore. We do often see a group of good friends, but as they're having out-of-town relatives over for Thanksgiving we're going to eschew that.
However, I just found out that my mother is coming in to town for about a month to be with her ailing mother, as allowed by the nursing home. I plan to invite her over to our small gathering (just my family and MIL), but am going to have to be a bit wary of how we do it; my mother's husband keeps them steeped in a 24-hour bath of Fox News and Trump tweets, and I think I'm going to have to set some very clear ground rules. I know that my mother was taking the pandemic seriously at first (at odds with StepF) but 7 months of this may have changed that.
Plus, she's staying at the house of other relatives whom I know are also Trump voters. They are also likely inviting us over during my mother's stay. I'm going to have to do some research into how seriously they are taking this and what their potential level of exposure is.
Or you could just make it easier on yourself and decline all of it, regardless, no exceptions.
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We were feeling ok about visiting H's family (only 5 people) over the holidays. All 5 are being quite careful (we thought).
Then cases rose and are still rising.
Now we found out his sister just had a Halloween party with 15-20 people. And we are questioning how safe she is actually being if she thought it was reasonable to put a party all over Facebook.
Ahhhhhhhhh. People suck.
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I live in the American south.
The whole thing is a Hoax down here. Hardly anyone is doing anything.
My own mom tries to see how far she can get into stores before they ask her to wear a mask. People are blacklisting businesses because they follow the state mandate for businesses to require folks to wear mask.
So no Holiday guilt here. Only stupidity.
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I've had a recurring nightmare for the past several months. It's 5 or 10 years from now (time frame varies), and suddenly, people start dying. Doctors can't figure out why. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, then millions of dead bodies. All over the world but the US is particularly hard hit. Then the scientists figure it out. It's covid. Initial death rate is very low. Long term death rate is very high.
I hope that my nightmare doesn't come true. I guess I'll find out in 10 years.
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I've had a recurring nightmare for the past several months. It's 5 or 10 years from now (time frame varies), and suddenly, people start dying. Doctors can't figure out why. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, then millions of dead bodies. All over the world but the US is particularly hard hit. Then the scientists figure it out. It's covid. Initial death rate is very low. Long term death rate is very high.
I hope that my nightmare doesn't come true. I guess I'll find out in 10 years.
Your subconscious is quite the pessimist. Yikes.
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I've had a recurring nightmare for the past several months. It's 5 or 10 years from now (time frame varies), and suddenly, people start dying. Doctors can't figure out why. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, then millions of dead bodies. All over the world but the US is particularly hard hit. Then the scientists figure it out. It's covid. Initial death rate is very low. Long term death rate is very high.
I hope that my nightmare doesn't come true. I guess I'll find out in 10 years.
That is terrifying, but I would TOTALLY read that as a novel!
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I've had a recurring nightmare for the past several months. It's 5 or 10 years from now (time frame varies), and suddenly, people start dying. Doctors can't figure out why. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, then millions of dead bodies. All over the world but the US is particularly hard hit. Then the scientists figure it out. It's covid. Initial death rate is very low. Long term death rate is very high.
I hope that my nightmare doesn't come true. I guess I'll find out in 10 years.
That is terrifying, but I would TOTALLY read that as a novel!
Any bets this is gonna be a movie in a year or two?
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Ha it already is! Look up "Songbird" trailer.
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Ha it already is! Look up "Songbird" trailer.
Oh baby...just watched it.
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I've had a recurring nightmare for the past several months. It's 5 or 10 years from now (time frame varies), and suddenly, people start dying. Doctors can't figure out why. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, then millions of dead bodies. All over the world but the US is particularly hard hit. Then the scientists figure it out. It's covid. Initial death rate is very low. Long term death rate is very high.
I hope that my nightmare doesn't come true. I guess I'll find out in 10 years.
That is terrifying, but I would TOTALLY read that as a novel!
Any bets this is gonna be a movie in a year or two?
I'm an auditor, so if someone else makes the movie fine. I probably don't want to watch it. It's plenty to have this nightmare about once a week since May.
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My younger sister and I are planning on cooking up a storm in our respective kitchens, meeting on our older sister’s (her husband was just diagnosed with a brain tumor) porch and outside our 92 year old mom’s door (she lives in a senior apartment complex where someone was just quarantined with Covid) with a diabetic Thanksgiving feast! We of course will wear masks delivering the food to their porches/doors and will go to our respective cars and have a group phone call about what we are thankful for!
We’ve discussed our plans and all involved are excited about the fun. We are including some fun gifts to pack leftovers into additional meals, with some Thanksgiving hand towels, hand soaps and Bath and Bodyworks smelly hand sanitizers.
We love our family too much to bring something negative into their already difficult lives. I hope our plans can inspire others on this blog.
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I hope people are sensible this season...or else our beloved jingles should be made warnings...
'Tis the Season to not be Spreading....
We Wish you a Merry Recovery and Hope You See the New Year !
God Rest Ye Fallen Gentleman
Deck the halls with IV's o' steroids, fa la la la la la la la la
T'was the Night before Christmas and the Virus was all through the house
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I hope people are sensible this season...or else our beloved jingles should be made warnings...
I'll suggest to my musician friends that they start working on rhyme schemes involving "remdesivir" and "dexamethasone." That's gonna take some effort.
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My husband's Uncle died of CoVid in early October. Found out today that the son who probably infected him died today(not sure of what.....he has substance abuse problems plus had Covid in September). I can't imagine the guilt one would feel about infecting someone who died. My husband's aunt lost a husband and now a son in one month.
Had Halloween down in the woods with family. We stayed outside (except to quickly dish up our plates with masks and gloves on) and visited in the fresh air at a distance. It was beautiful weather. Kids played with masks on outside and we tried to keep a distance but it was hard during tether ball. Had a Halloween egg hunt in the wood for candy in lieu of trick or treating. Kids had a blast and said it was our best Halloween yet. We had our own separate cabin from my parents and my sister and nephew (my sister and nephew are still pretty hunkered down).
Even with knowing how exposed I am now (teacher) my mom proposed all of us eating in doors. I politely refused. I will not be the one to cause someone else to die. If someone catches it with all of our precautions, I feel like we did our best (short of not seeing each other in person for the next year).
I did sign up for a vaccine trial. I'm willing to risk CoVid in a controlled way that may help others (or at least determine it's not a safe or effective vaccine!)
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I can't imagine the guilt one would feel about infecting someone who died.
Yes! This is a big part of why I'm so careful. I now have two friends who had a parent die of/with COVID, a friend whose in-laws both died of it, and a friend whose mother and stepfather currently have it. Most of them got it from their kids or some kind of health aides. If I gave it to my parents I would be completely devastated. They're the only people in my 'bubble' and we all have to be careful enough to protect each other.
I also volunteered for a vaccine trial, but they never called me. I think some of my medical issues disqualified me, but I figured I'd let them decide if I would be a good test case for them or not, since people with these same medical issues will eventually have to be vaccinated.
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I can't imagine the guilt one would feel about infecting someone who died.
Yes! This is a big part of why I'm so careful. I now have two friends who had a parent die of/with COVID, a friend whose in-laws both died of it, and a friend whose mother and stepfather currently have it. Most of them got it from their kids or some kind of health aides. If I gave it to my parents I would be completely devastated. They're the only people in my 'bubble' and we all have to be careful enough to protect each other.
I also volunteered for a vaccine trial, but they never called me. I think some of my medical issues disqualified me, but I figured I'd let them decide if I would be a good test case for them or not, since people with these same medical issues will eventually have to be vaccinated.
Same. My father in law got it in April and it was a miserable month of not being able to see him or speak to him and not always knowing how he was doing while lots of other people at his facility were dying. He survived, but I don't wish to go through that again, and I never want to be the cause of that experience for someone else. My mother in law and her husband keep inviting us inside but I tell them there is no guarantee we are safe for them and keep insisting on outdoors with masks on. It sucks to be the one to always say no, but just had another (hopefully) near miss in my social circle this weekend. So I'm not doing holiday dinners this year, and I'm still not socializing indoors. End of story.
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DW and I had a conversation last night and it was good to hear that we are on the same page.
No driving to the extended family relatives for T-day. We're characterizing it as we are the risk and we're trying to protect them - the elderly members who will be present. Whole family of southern non-maskers with a dose of denial/fake news/QAnon thrown in potentially. We'll Zoom teleconference from our house.
We would have no control over who shows up and no control over their behavior (mask, no mask, distancing, etc). It potentially could be a large group if the usual folks come. We really want to see everyone but not this year after COVID. The election could lead to some awkward conversations. Nope, we didn't vote for their candidates.
On top of that COVID is currently working its way through one part of the family in that city. I'm pretty sure that the whole house did not quarantine. I just about guarantee that one of them will come to the meal.
Hoping that we can use the same strategy at Christmas.
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Well, topic officially came up last night with my parents. They aren't thrilled, but understand. Thanksgiving is off - everyone is staying home. And told them that while Christmas isn't decided yet, it's not looking good. Then got to go over, again, all the reasons why covid numbers are spiking.
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Big family Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are definitely canceled. My parents have been hosting family dinners outside over the summer, but don't want to be out in the cold, and will not be doing anything. I haven't decided on plans but may get together with another family for dinner.
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We've been back and forth about what to do. We (my gf and I) at the moment plan to have T-day dinner with my immediate family. We've all been near each other lately and all live in the same county (except my sister who lives out East), and we all WFH and don't do stupid shit like go to bars or large gatherings. Even so, I'm starting to lean towards telling Mom we won't be coming...
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My decision got easier, as it was made for me - my mother will no longer be traveling to our area this month. As such, our Thanksgiving will be limited to just our family and my MIL (who doesn't live with us but also doesn't see anyone other than us).
The biggest risk is myself, as I've been traveling for work for the better part of three weeks. I'm 100% diligent about PPE and avoiding all unnecessary human contact, but unfortunately am still forced into risky situations (airport, plane ride, and occasional days at work with people who are both less diligent and not sufficiently distanced). Hope to get through this trip safely and then avoid all travel until I can get vaccinated.
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My mom floated the idea of having everyone "quarantine" for 3 weeks pre-Thanksgiving, so that we could have an indoor sit-down meal. Unfortunately, that's not really possible, because a) my dad and stepmom probably wouldn't agree to it (stepmom thinks the virus is overblown / "just like the flu"; they've been "careful" except for their "trusted circle of friends" who they see in-person for indoor dinners...), b) I wouldn't really trust everyone to have the same definition of "quarantine," and c) my sister wouldn't want to come anyway, because she'd rather take this as an excuse to avoid the big family gatherings.
Right now we're bubbled with my husband's parents, who we basically trust to actually be careful. They're unfortunately still going to grocery stores, which we hope we can talk them out of, but otherwise are on a similar risk level to us. Tentative plan for Thanksgiving is to have a meal with them and some kind of Zoom thing with his extended family, and then do something outdoors with my family the day after. We usually go to a local Christmas tree farm the day after Thanksgiving, so I'd ideally like to do that + masks + distancing.
But: cases are at their highest point ever now, and likely to get worse in the next few weeks. It may be that our risk tolerance goes down too far for even those activities by then. We'll see.
I'm hopeful that once deaths start skyrocketing, people will collectively notice, freak out, and course correct. But everyone may just be too tired of quarantine even then.
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My parents, sibling, and parents in law want to come to our house as usual. We regularly have contact with my immediate family bc they babysit on a weekly basis. My sibling has a public facing job but gets tested regularly in addition to ppe etc. My parents shop but wear masks and get semi regular tests. My in laws barely leave the house. Our kids have contact with classmates and I work in a solitary location, but it's outside of the house.
We won't be able to strictly quarantine, but plan to test ahead of time and stay in as much a possible beforehand. Dinner will be shorter, with open windows/fans, good spacing, and masks when not eating.
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What do you do when there’s disagreement within the household? My spouse’s family is having a large, indoor Christmas gathering, complete with relatives flying in from out of state. We are in a high transmission state and they are coming from high transmission states. 7 total states will be represented at this gathering. Some of these relatives haven’t visited for Christmas in over 10 years! Why did they decide that THIS year is a good year to come visit? There will be elderly people at this gathering and others in high risk groups (including one of my children). I am literally the only person out of these 35 people who thinks this is a bad idea. My spouse has no problem with this and the family thinks the virus is no worse than the flu/hyped by the media and will miraculously disappear after the election.
I don’t know what to do. I can stay home but I don’t know that I can force my spouse to leave our children home. I also know our children will be very upset to miss out on seeing their cousins who they rarely see. Is anyone else having disagreement within the household? How are you resolving it?
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Dang. I want the guilt to go on the idiots. We never even got to consider visiting our parents for the holidays because our siblings who are local to our parents don't believe in COVID precautions and at some point our parents gave up on isolating from their grandkids who are all out and about as much as possible.
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What do you do when there’s disagreement within the household? My spouse’s family is having a large, indoor Christmas gathering, complete with relatives flying in from out of state. We are in a high transmission state and they are coming from high transmission states. 7 total states will be represented at this gathering. Some of these relatives haven’t visited for Christmas in over 10 years! Why did they decide that THIS year is a good year to come visit? There will be elderly people at this gathering and others in high risk groups (including one of my children). I am literally the only person out of these 35 people who thinks this is a bad idea. My spouse has no problem with this and the family thinks the virus is no worse than the flu/hyped by the media and will miraculously disappear after the election.
I don’t know what to do. I can stay home but I don’t know that I can force my spouse to leave our children home. I also know our children will be very upset to miss out on seeing their cousins who they rarely see. Is anyone else having disagreement within the household? How are you resolving it?
Yes, you can put your foot down and insist that your spouse not take your children and put them in danger. You can also insist that they quarantine elsewhere when they return for two weeks, and if they refuse that, you and the kids can quarantine elsewhere.
You handle it relative to how important it is to you. If the safety of your children is that high a priority, you make that big a deal about it.
If my DH insisted on going to a giant, indoor, unprotected family gathering in the US and insisted on coming straight home, you bet your ass I wouldn't be here when he got back.
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What do you do when there’s disagreement within the household? My spouse’s family is having a large, indoor Christmas gathering, complete with relatives flying in from out of state. We are in a high transmission state and they are coming from high transmission states. 7 total states will be represented at this gathering. Some of these relatives haven’t visited for Christmas in over 10 years! Why did they decide that THIS year is a good year to come visit? There will be elderly people at this gathering and others in high risk groups (including one of my children). I am literally the only person out of these 35 people who thinks this is a bad idea. My spouse has no problem with this and the family thinks the virus is no worse than the flu/hyped by the media and will miraculously disappear after the election.
I don’t know what to do. I can stay home but I don’t know that I can force my spouse to leave our children home. I also know our children will be very upset to miss out on seeing their cousins who they rarely see. Is anyone else having disagreement within the household? How are you resolving it?
Yes, you can put your foot down and insist that your spouse not take your children and put them in danger. You can also insist that they quarantine elsewhere when they return for two weeks, and if they refuse that, you and the kids can quarantine elsewhere.
You handle it relative to how important it is to you. If the safety of your children is that high a priority, you make that big a deal about it.
If my DH insisted on going to a giant, indoor, unprotected family gathering in the US and insisted on coming straight home, you bet your ass I wouldn't be here when he got back.
+1.
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What do you do when there’s disagreement within the household? My spouse’s family is having a large, indoor Christmas gathering, complete with relatives flying in from out of state. We are in a high transmission state and they are coming from high transmission states. 7 total states will be represented at this gathering. Some of these relatives haven’t visited for Christmas in over 10 years! Why did they decide that THIS year is a good year to come visit? There will be elderly people at this gathering and others in high risk groups (including one of my children). I am literally the only person out of these 35 people who thinks this is a bad idea. My spouse has no problem with this and the family thinks the virus is no worse than the flu/hyped by the media and will miraculously disappear after the election.
I don’t know what to do. I can stay home but I don’t know that I can force my spouse to leave our children home. I also know our children will be very upset to miss out on seeing their cousins who they rarely see. Is anyone else having disagreement within the household? How are you resolving it?
Yes, you can put your foot down and insist that your spouse not take your children and put them in danger. You can also insist that they quarantine elsewhere when they return for two weeks, and if they refuse that, you and the kids can quarantine elsewhere.
You handle it relative to how important it is to you. If the safety of your children is that high a priority, you make that big a deal about it.
If my DH insisted on going to a giant, indoor, unprotected family gathering in the US and insisted on coming straight home, you bet your ass I wouldn't be here when he got back.
+1.
Same. If my spouse pulled that crap, we would be in marriage counseling in very short order.
Some people's disregard of the safety of those they supposedly love is just...astonishing.
ETA: In happier news, we are experiencing zero holiday-related guilt b/c we typically don't spend holidays with family and haven't in years. With the exception of one relative (who we usually host for Christmas), they are all way too far-flung to see with any regularity. And I'm sure as shit not flying anywhere right now, even if holiday visits were the norm.
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What do you do when there’s disagreement within the household? My spouse’s family is having a large, indoor Christmas gathering, complete with relatives flying in from out of state. We are in a high transmission state and they are coming from high transmission states. 7 total states will be represented at this gathering. Some of these relatives haven’t visited for Christmas in over 10 years! Why did they decide that THIS year is a good year to come visit? There will be elderly people at this gathering and others in high risk groups (including one of my children). I am literally the only person out of these 35 people who thinks this is a bad idea. My spouse has no problem with this and the family thinks the virus is no worse than the flu/hyped by the media and will miraculously disappear after the election.
I don’t know what to do. I can stay home but I don’t know that I can force my spouse to leave our children home. I also know our children will be very upset to miss out on seeing their cousins who they rarely see. Is anyone else having disagreement within the household? How are you resolving it?
Yes, you can put your foot down and insist that your spouse not take your children and put them in danger. You can also insist that they quarantine elsewhere when they return for two weeks, and if they refuse that, you and the kids can quarantine elsewhere.
You handle it relative to how important it is to you. If the safety of your children is that high a priority, you make that big a deal about it.
If my DH insisted on going to a giant, indoor, unprotected family gathering in the US and insisted on coming straight home, you bet your ass I wouldn't be here when he got back.
+1.
Same. If my spouse pulled that crap, we would be in marriage counseling in very short order.
Some people's disregard of the safety of those they supposedly love is just...astonishing.
ETA: In happier news, we are experiencing zero holiday-related guilt b/c we typically don't spend holidays with family and haven't in years. With the exception of one relative (who we usually host for Christmas), they are all way too far-flung to see with any regularity. And I'm sure as shit not flying anywhere right now, even if holiday visits were the norm.
That's the right word for it. I'm absolutely astonished that your spouse would even consider risking your child's safety just for a get-together. Do whatever you need to do to protect your children.
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My partner and I just turned down Thanksgiving events with both of our families. My family has been treating everything as overblown, but now 6 members of my extended family just tested positive, including my aunt in her 70s, so I don't think they'll be too much guilt. My mom lives alone so I do want to see her, but I will have quarantined in advance. She'll actually be more likely to transmit something to me rather than the reverse.
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I booked some Turkey week flights in September when cases seemed to be declining/flatlining. But the state I'm traveling to has turned into a $hitshow (major Trump-supporting state) for Covid, and my own state is going on a multi-week "timeout." So I canceled my flights and going to chill the rest of the year. It's just not worth it, although I think a short flight with masks and hanging with immediate family is not that risky. I booked with confidence that I could cancel with no change fees, which helped. Sucks, but I can wait 6-10 months until I'm vaccinated and the Covid dust settles.
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This website might come in handy for folks in the U.S. who are making decisions about holiday gatherings and/or trying to convince friends/family about holiday gatherings. It gives you the odds of a gathering of N size containing at least one person with COVID in whichever county you're gathering in, based on current testing results. Obviously not perfect as you might have people traveling from different counties, etc. but it's handy for a guesstimate. For example, where my parents live there's currently a 10% chance that someone will bring COVID to Thanksgiving with a 10-person group. But in some parts of the country a random 10-person group would be 80% likely to have someone with COVID at Thanksgiving. You could also extrapolate this to things like: what are the odds someone will have COVID on a plane with 200 people flying out of Chicago (basically 100%), etc.
https://covid19risk.biosci.gatech.edu/
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We're planning on doing a zoom meeting between the different branches of the family during our thanksgiving dinners in different places. :P
This is what my family is planning as well, zoom Thanksgiving late lunch, late dinner, and day after breakfast across three time zones simultaneously. I'm actually looking forward to it more than a bunch of travel. Thankful that my siblings are on board with curtailing in person celebrations for now.
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Finally returned home for good after 3 weeks of travel for work. Got my (first ever) COVID test yesterday. It'll probably determine whether or not we can hold a Thanksgiving celebration with grandma. That will be the max size of any gathering for our family.
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What do you do when there’s disagreement within the household? My spouse’s family is having a large, indoor Christmas gathering, complete with relatives flying in from out of state. We are in a high transmission state and they are coming from high transmission states. 7 total states will be represented at this gathering. Some of these relatives haven’t visited for Christmas in over 10 years! Why did they decide that THIS year is a good year to come visit? There will be elderly people at this gathering and others in high risk groups (including one of my children). I am literally the only person out of these 35 people who thinks this is a bad idea. My spouse has no problem with this and the family thinks the virus is no worse than the flu/hyped by the media and will miraculously disappear after the election.
I don’t know what to do. I can stay home but I don’t know that I can force my spouse to leave our children home. I also know our children will be very upset to miss out on seeing their cousins who they rarely see. Is anyone else having disagreement within the household? How are you resolving it?
Yes, you can put your foot down and insist that your spouse not take your children and put them in danger. You can also insist that they quarantine elsewhere when they return for two weeks, and if they refuse that, you and the kids can quarantine elsewhere.
You handle it relative to how important it is to you. If the safety of your children is that high a priority, you make that big a deal about it.
If my DH insisted on going to a giant, indoor, unprotected family gathering in the US and insisted on coming straight home, you bet your ass I wouldn't be here when he got back.
Thank you all for the advice. I broached the topic again yesterday and said that I wanted to be able to discuss this without arguing. It went very well. He agreed to cancel Thanksgiving (we are supposed to host his family). My family isn’t gathering for holidays this year. He agrees the huge Christmas gathering is a bad idea but feels very conflicted because he hasn’t seen his brother in many years. Then he spoke to his mother and she said she is nervous about this Christmas gathering. I texted his cousin who feels the same way and is likely backing out of Christmas. It seems I just needed to be the first to speak up and then others expressed their same concerns. He is going to talk to his brother and tell him that this is not a good year to come visit and that their elderly mom (whose house they would be staying in) is concerned as well. We’ll see how it goes from there.
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This website might come in handy for folks in the U.S. who are making decisions about holiday gatherings and/or trying to convince friends/family about holiday gatherings. It gives you the odds of a gathering of N size containing at least one person with COVID in whichever county you're gathering in, based on current testing results. Obviously not perfect as you might have people traveling from different counties, etc. but it's handy for a guesstimate. For example, where my parents live there's currently a 10% chance that someone will bring COVID to Thanksgiving with a 10-person group. But in some parts of the country a random 10-person group would be 80% likely to have someone with COVID at Thanksgiving. You could also extrapolate this to things like: what are the odds someone will have COVID on a plane with 200 people flying out of Chicago (basically 100%), etc.
https://covid19risk.biosci.gatech.edu/
Wow! Thank you for sharing this! This map is equal parts helpful and alarming.
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My younger sister and I are planning on cooking up a storm in our respective kitchens, meeting on our older sister’s (her husband was just diagnosed with a brain tumor) porch and outside our 92 year old mom’s door (she lives in a senior apartment complex where someone was just quarantined with Covid) with a diabetic Thanksgiving feast! We of course will wear masks delivering the food to their porches/doors and will go to our respective cars and have a group phone call about what we are thankful for!
We’ve discussed our plans and all involved are excited about the fun. We are including some fun gifts to pack leftovers into additional meals, with some Thanksgiving hand towels, hand soaps and Bath and Bodyworks smelly hand sanitizers.
We love our family too much to bring something negative into their already difficult lives. I hope our plans can inspire others on this blog.
This is exactly what my sibling and I plan on doing. Both my parents are very high risk and due to our jobs, sibling and I can't isolate perfectly. Neither of us are willing to put our beloved parents in harms way. Fortunately they are both fully onboard and want to share in the 'potluck' experience by cooking a special side for us to take home when we drop off our goody boxes (outdoors and masked).
Family and Farming: You have inspired me to up my 'goody box' game. I had planned on including some homemade potpourri in my goody box but love the idea of also adding some fall scented hand soaps and lotions as well.
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Im Canadian and we have our thanksgiving in october. Numbers spiked and we are now dealing with it. We stayed home and did an outside visit with a few people. Christmas is cancelled with my family and we may yry to take kids sliding and hot chocolate outside if we are lucky and numbers remain okay. My heart goes out to the US right now and there rising numbers.
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As we get closer to the holidays, I feel myself experiencing not only guilt, but also grief. I feel guilty because I know my siblings plan to gather and don't understand why I won't, but I can manage that. It's my MIL I feel badly about. She's 75, and she misses us. We miss her too. Thanksgiving isn't so bad -- we've opted out before, including last year, I think. But Christmas is another story -- we've never spent Christmas away from family (meaning we've seen both sides of the family every year for 30+ years now). We'd like to do testing and quarantine ourselves 14 days to make it safe, but we can't when our boys work outside the home in an essential business (which has had more than one Covid scare and we're waiting again to see if widespread testing is going to be required next week). And my worry is that the huge spike will only continue to rise after the Thanksgiving gatherings people will have, making Christmas even riskier.
So I feel guilt for saying no when people want to gather, but also grief at the situation because not being able gather will be sad.
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I feel a lot better about not doing Thanksgiving/Christmas. I have extended family who aren't doing anything remotely resembling social distancing and also are in the "whatever, just get it over with" category.
But... I'm lying if I am not bummed about missing the holidays.
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Our friends whom we often spend Thanksgiving with again asking if we want to join them - they had sensed that we were uncomfortable with the fact that they were having out-of-town relatives fly in (which we were), but that trip finally was canceled. Not due to common sense, mind you, but because one of the relatives received a positive COVID test.
We still aren't going to do it, though. It's going to be a gathering of 4-5 households, even if all are local. I'd like to think that Christmas will be better, but basically am assuming it won't.
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I feel a lot better about not doing Thanksgiving/Christmas. I have extended family who aren't doing anything remotely resembling social distancing and also are in the "whatever, just get it over with" category.
But... I'm lying if I am not bummed about missing the holidays.
I'm bummed out too. On Christmas Eve we go to my husband's extended family. There are maybe 30 or so people - lots of kids running around, Santa makes an appearance, a Scandinavian smorgasbord. Not this year. Nope.
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I'm doing Thanksgiving with just my roommates. It should be nice.
I haven't gotten any grief yet from family, but we haven't even talked about Christmas.
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I feel a lot better about not doing Thanksgiving/Christmas. I have extended family who aren't doing anything remotely resembling social distancing and also are in the "whatever, just get it over with" category.
But... I'm lying if I am not bummed about missing the holidays.
I'm bummed out too. On Christmas Eve we go to my husband's extended family. There are maybe 30 or so people - lots of kids running around, Santa makes an appearance, a Scandinavian smorgasbord. Not this year. Nope.
We're bummed too -- eldest kid today said Christmas is going to be weird, and he's right. We won't get to see family. We won't get to celebrate Advent in our church, or the majesty and joy of the Christmas Eve Vigil service followed by desserts and drinks in the great hall, gleefully wishing everyone Merry Christmas, and getting home well after midnight. DH and I won't be at church again early on Christmas morning to do the readings and prayers, something we volunteer for because we live close by, making it easier for us than many others. No Christmas Eve brunch with one side of the family, or Christmas dinner with the other. The boys won't get to play their newest video games with their favorite uncle. No Christmas Day bike ride with friends celebrating the one with a Christmas Day birthday. And then the 12 days of Christmas will also be quiet -- no driving to visit other family members, no carol service, no caroling parties, no walking through the fancy decorated neighborhoods with friends.
Our tradition is to put up our tree and decorate the house no earlier than December 22nd (usually as close to Christmas Eve as we can push it) and to leave it up until the weekend after Epiphany. Eldest today suggested we put up the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving and just enjoy it. I'm conflicted, because I love Advent and the quiet waiting. But I understand how this year is different, and if the tree will make them happy, I guess we'll do it early.
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No Christmas Eve brunch with one side of the family, or Christmas dinner with the other. The boys won't get to play their newest video games with their favorite uncle. No Christmas Day bike ride with friends celebrating the one with a Christmas Day birthday. And then the 12 days of Christmas will also be quiet -- no driving to visit other family members, no carol service, no caroling parties, no walking through the fancy decorated neighborhoods with friends.
Maybe you could come up with some worthwhile charitable projects to involve the family in. Many people are going to live through a truly tragic holiday season this year in one way or another - people losing family members, healthcare workers having to work endless overtime in hospitals, people losing their jobs, etc. etc. There is no better time to teach your kids how good it can make them feel to alleviate the suffering of people in need, and I'm sure you can find some good ways to tie that in with the teachings of Jesus and the holiday of Christmas.
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Looks like we are going to skip Thanksgiving dinner (was just going to be with a couple members of my immediate family). Our county just enacted and emergency order prohibiting indoor gatherings with people you don't live with. How they would enforce that, I'm not sure, but that's besides the point.
Should be fine though, T day with just the GF and dog will be pretty chill.
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I don't have guilt, but I do have sorrow. We live a in a different state from my side and my in-laws. (my side and the in-laws are also in different states... my state isn't great, but the both of the states where the families are located are on fire at the moment). We live far enough that often we only see our families during the holidays. I am sad we will not be able to visit in-person but I am also sad at the response we are getting for being unwilling to travel.
My in-laws are not taking this seriously at all. They have badgered my partner enough on the family group text that he finally told them he wasn't willing to discuss it any more and muted the chat. He hasn't spoken to his mom or siblings in over two weeks, which is a long time for him.
My family is split on how seriously they are taking it. Those taking it seriously, get it and understand. Those that do not, including my mom and siblings, are not badgering but they keep making comments aimed at making me feel guilty. It's not working, but it is starting to make me annoyed. They might also have to go on the mute list for a bit.
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I'm a bit nervous. My family lives an hour north of us, and my SO's family lives another hour and a half north of them. We usually do the holidays like this: Thanksgiving day: Stay over night with my parents, Black Friday, stay overnight at his parents, drive home Saturday. Similarly, Christmas Eve we stay with my parents, then Christmas Day we go to his folks. No extended family in attendance, so at least we won't be risking killing grandma.
Well obviously that's shot because we would be transferring crud from my parents to his with no quarantine period. We're still planning to see both sides, but with two weeks between each visit to each side.
Both sets of parents are less careful than we are. Mine keep shopping at peak hours, but at least wear masks. My dad goes into work instead of working from home "because he prefers it." Meanwhile SO's family are Trump supporters and have been going to breweries (at least outside). And SO's mom works inside a school and has to go in. My SO and I both work from home and have only left the house to get groceries about once a week--at 5am to avoid other shoppers.
So really, the people most at risk are us... and so far we've felt we're young and healthy enough to risk the visits. If Thanksgiving at his parents makes me less confident in SO's family's risk mitigation, we'll reevaluate. Ultimately, it feels like we would be risking the relationship if we didn't go. Which sounds stupid when I write it down, but there it is.
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So how did all your Thanksgiving get-togethers go? Were you all able to isolate/distance/celebrate responsibly? :) Hopefully nobody participated in what might become super spreader events.
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Mine was good. My partner and I met up with my mom at a new park, and walked around the lake. My brother lives near that park, and texted us to stop by after the walk, as they were just doing yard work outside. So I got to see most of my family, all outdoors, and felt good about it. (My brother was originally supposed at his house, but apparently nobody felt comfortable going!)
Then partner and I headed home and made our own mini-feast with our pup. Next up, hand-wringing over Christmas plans!
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So how did all your Thanksgiving get-togethers go? Were you all able to isolate/distance/celebrate responsibly? :) Hopefully nobody participated in what might become super spreader events.
It was fine. I was able to isolate for about two weeks before Thanksgiving and got a COVID test as well. I went to see my parents. We also invited some neighbor friends of theirs who have no family nearby. All of us isolated and got tested and haven't done anything but masked grocery/drug-store/medical appointments for 3+ weeks before the holiday. We also got lucky and had a relatively warm Thanksgiving, so we were able to keep all the windows and doors open for ventilation, just in case there was a one in a million edge case where one of us was asymptomatic, didn't show up on a PCR test, but somehow still infected/contagious after the isolation period. And we did other things, like having two of everything at the table that you'd need to pass (one for each family) so people wouldn't have to keep touching and re-touching or leaning over each other. The people who weren't cooking sat outside until it got dark. There were no hugs and people tried to stay a few feet apart (we put leaves in the dining table so we could sit farther apart).
That said, I think if anyone had been infected, we'd have all gotten it. The important part is isolating and testing in advance, if you're going to be indoors. Opening windows might lower the odds a little, but it's no guarantee. And you have to be able to trust the people you're with to actually understand how isolation/quarantine works and to do it correctly and fully. This is a rare case where I am able to trust all of the people. I wouldn't trust 95% of the people I know.
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So how did all your Thanksgiving get-togethers go? Were you all able to isolate/distance/celebrate responsibly? :) Hopefully nobody participated in what might become super spreader events.
Not super! Turns out SO's parents weren't isolating as much as they had led us to believe. I caught something and have been sick for the last few days. We plan to quarantine in place and not do anymore holiday events. One trial with getting sick was enough for us. Our fault for trusting too much, I guess.
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So how did all your Thanksgiving get-togethers go? Were you all able to isolate/distance/celebrate responsibly? :) Hopefully nobody participated in what might become super spreader events.
Not super! Turns out SO's parents weren't isolating as much as they had led us to believe. I caught something and have been sick for the last few days. We plan to quarantine in place and not do anymore holiday events. One trial with getting sick was enough for us. Our fault for trusting too much, I guess.
Oh jeez, that really sucks. At least you have a really good reason to say no next time :-/ Hope you feel better soon.
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So how did all your Thanksgiving get-togethers go? Were you all able to isolate/distance/celebrate responsibly? :) Hopefully nobody participated in what might become super spreader events.
I stayed home and did nothing (well, I cooked some good food, but it was just like every other day). My family is 800 miles away and a no-go for visits. We thought about visiting my BF's family (300 miles away) - it would have been a small gathering of 11 people, but they were going to be "business as usual" with no modifications, so we decided not to go. Then two members of his family were exposed (one at work, one at daycare) right before Thanksgiving - their tests came back negative, but it wasn't clear if they'd get their results before the family gathering they were still planning to have. I'm still hoping no one got exposed during the meal.
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Update on my own situation (I’m the one with the big, multi-state in-law Christmas reunion). We were supposed to host his family for Thanksgiving and cancelled. The rest of them got together without us. My elderly father-in-law was diagnosed with COVID yesterday. He was sick with mild, non-typical symptoms on Thanksgiving and attended anyway because he did not recognize those symptoms as being COVID. He had been exposed 4 days prior during an unnecessary social outing. They’re not the most forthcoming with information, but from what we’ve been told, so far his symptoms are mild and no one else is sick. We certainly hope it stays that way. But we are extremely relieved that we did not attend Thanksgiving and will not be attending Christmas either. Thank you all for helping me grow a backbone.
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Thanksgiving was good with just the two of us for the first time maybe ever? We ate a lot and slept a lot and exercised every day. Had the whole week off to stay home and couch up.
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Update on my own situation (I’m the one with the big, multi-state in-law Christmas reunion). We were supposed to host his family for Thanksgiving and cancelled. The rest of them got together without us. My elderly father-in-law was diagnosed with COVID yesterday. He was sick with mild, non-typical symptoms on Thanksgiving and attended anyway because he did not recognize those symptoms as being COVID. He had been exposed 4 days prior during an unnecessary social outing. They’re not the most forthcoming with information, but from what we’ve been told, so far his symptoms are mild and no one else is sick. We certainly hope it stays that way. But we are extremely relieved that we did not attend Thanksgiving and will not be attending Christmas either. Thank you all for helping me grow a backbone.
Oh no! I hope your FIL is OK. Unfortunately, that is exactly how this thing is spreading like wildfire. So glad you stayed home.
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Update on my own situation (I’m the one with the big, multi-state in-law Christmas reunion). We were supposed to host his family for Thanksgiving and cancelled. The rest of them got together without us. My elderly father-in-law was diagnosed with COVID yesterday. He was sick with mild, non-typical symptoms on Thanksgiving and attended anyway because he did not recognize those symptoms as being COVID. He had been exposed 4 days prior during an unnecessary social outing. They’re not the most forthcoming with information, but from what we’ve been told, so far his symptoms are mild and no one else is sick. We certainly hope it stays that way. But we are extremely relieved that we did not attend Thanksgiving and will not be attending Christmas either. Thank you all for helping me grow a backbone.
Oh no! I hope your FIL is OK. Unfortunately, that is exactly how this thing is spreading like wildfire. So glad you stayed home.
Seconded. And while others may not have symptoms, they are very possibly asymptomatic. What a mess.
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We stayed home for the first time in years and honestly really enjoyed it. So relaxing. DW made us a great meal. We messed around the house and played with our toys. ;)
Other parts of the family had the holidays as usual so large group, smallish house. No reports of sickness yet.
Came back to work and coworkers were not careful by their own admissions. Several reported traveling all over to see family and friends for the holidays as usual.
Hoping DW and I don't catch anything from coworkers.
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It was just the four of us at home, and it was wonderful. We split the tasks up and it was pretty fun. I'm glad my kids have one Thanksgiving memory of their mom and dad cooking (dad cooks all the time, it's a bit more rare for me!)
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Update on my own situation (I’m the one with the big, multi-state in-law Christmas reunion). We were supposed to host his family for Thanksgiving and cancelled. The rest of them got together without us. My elderly father-in-law was diagnosed with COVID yesterday. He was sick with mild, non-typical symptoms on Thanksgiving and attended anyway because he did not recognize those symptoms as being COVID. He had been exposed 4 days prior during an unnecessary social outing. They’re not the most forthcoming with information, but from what we’ve been told, so far his symptoms are mild and no one else is sick. We certainly hope it stays that way. But we are extremely relieved that we did not attend Thanksgiving and will not be attending Christmas either. Thank you all for helping me grow a backbone.
Oh no! I hope your FIL is OK. Unfortunately, that is exactly how this thing is spreading like wildfire. So glad you stayed home.
Seconded. And while others may not have symptoms, they are very possibly asymptomatic. What a mess.
Thank you both. FIL is doing ok so far. He’s not great, but does not need to be hospitalized. We are staying away from all of them, as we have been. Unfortunately, my husband is an essential worker (not healthcare) and works in the public. But beyond him going to work and trips to the grocery store, we are staying home.
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Not super! Turns out SO's parents weren't isolating as much as they had led us to believe. I caught something and have been sick for the last few days. We plan to quarantine in place and not do anymore holiday events. One trial with getting sick was enough for us. Our fault for trusting too much, I guess.
Oh jeez, that really sucks. At least you have a really good reason to say no next time :-/ Hope you feel better soon.
I ended up getting a COVID test: negative, luckily. The cold cleared up a few days later. Still, SO and I had a come to Jesus moment that more visits aren't worth the risk right now. It very well could have been covid, and even passing a regular flu to my parents would put my mom at extra extra risk right now. So we look forward to a quiet, no visits Christmas with some Zoom calls.
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SIL asked if we are coming for Christmas, then almost immediately commented on a FB post that we here in CA are basically under house arrest. Uh, no and no, but the new restrictions are there because our hospitals are filling up due to your fucking "hoax." Put a mask on, your county isn't far behind ours on hospital occupancy and you are surrounded by counties that are even worse...
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I had been planning on driving out of state to see my parents over Thanksgiving and stay for over a week, followed by a trip to another state to see some friends (would have gotten together with them this last weekend). My parents are very careful, as am I. No indoor dining, wear masks while grocery shopping and try to go as long between trips as possible, etc. My friends are rather more dodgy. My impression is that most are not taking things as seriously and many have jobs that are not compatible with working from home.
In early November I decided I wouldn’t be making the second part of the trip to see my friends. I held out hope of going to see my parents for a while longer. Because both they and I are very careful, my biggest worry was the danger of me picking it up on the 2-3 day road trip out there. I’d done a long road trip to see them over the summer when infection rates were much lower and it was obvious that no matter how hard you try there’s going to be some contact with other people at rest areas, gas stations, hotel check-in desks, etc. Because I was planning to be out there for more than a week there would have been enough time for me to become contagious if I picked it up on the trip out and pass it on to my parents. I ended up pulling the plug on the trip the week before Thanksgiving.
I bought all the makings of Thanksgiving dinner and we managed to synchronize the cooking timing so we were able to sit down to dinner at the same time and eat together via FaceTime on our iPads. Not the same as being there, but probably the best choice, all things considered.
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We're starting to face some guilt from family - we cancelled Thanksgiving with my mother and didn't let her come for my birthday either. Practically speaking we've cancelled Christmas with my father (PA requires a 14 day quarantine or negative COVID test on entering the state, and my dad is out of state). Both my mother and MIL heard that we didn't think we'd be able to see my dad as planned, and immediately attempted to slot themselves into that spot, since they're both in PA. When I said no, my mom took it a little hard but didn't argue. MIL, on the other hand, promptly suggested that we all do a 7 day quarantine ahead of time, so we can see her. A) I work through the 23rd, so quarantining is not practical. B) I have a hard time telling my mom we can't see her at all, then going ahead and seeing MIL (who we saw in Nov for DH's birthday). C) Everyone has a different idea of what 'quarantine' means, and I don't know if her definition lines up with mine, and I don't want to have that conversation.
Trying to bring people around to a drive by to drop off gifts, followed by a zoom call to open them together. Dad's gifts will have to be mailed, so I'm trying to get things together early.
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My Mom wants to see people for Christmas, but she and Dad can't quarantine because of Dad's job, and they are still choosing to go to church. Plus, they are out of state and we have travel restrictions. So we are basically resigned to not seeing them until after they get vaccinated, but apparently my Mom has decided she doesn't want to get vaccinated. So.
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My brother called last night, asking what I want to do for Christmas, as I am the "picky" one in the family about Covid. He offered two options - 1) we could all go get Covid tests some time before Christmas, or 2) I could go see our Mom earlier in the day, then Mom could go to his house, as she is less picky.
I am surprised (and pleased) he offered the Covid test option, but I've started hearing more about false negatives, and our area is still SO RIFE with growing cases that I'm not sure it's the best idea with the deadline. I love my brother and miss hanging out with his family, but all five of them go to different places everyday (work / school / daycare).
My partner and I already turned down a plan to have Christmas with my partner's brother, so I think we're also going to turn down this one... I need to talk with my mom though about what she wants. It ain't easy being picky.
(Note: my mom is high risk. I can't and wouldn't control what she does, but I wouldn't see her if I thought I might bring Covid to her. Partner and I work from home and see nobody, so at least on that front I feel okay.)
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Well, mom was ok with no Thanksgiving. We did a zoom call in the evening. But she is really not happy about the idea of nothing for Christmas. This would be the first time that she's not had at least one kid around for Christmas, regardless of which house they were at. I'm sympathetic, but not budging. Given that I'm expecting cases to explode in the next week or so due to all the idiots who got together for Thanksgiving (and we're already at a 15% positivity rate), nope. We'll do zoom.
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Locked down in SoCal for Christmas. Technically, we could still get together with friends without fear of retribution, but I see no point in contributing to the problem. We'll hold Christmas the same way we held Thanksgiving. I suspect my friends are still pretending that their COVID bubble doesn't violate the guidelines, anyhow, and we wouldn't be comfortable attending. Keeping my family masked up and distancing while indoors around them no longer feels sufficient (they don't mask around us, and the kids don't really distance while playing).
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I am surprised (and pleased) he offered the Covid test option, but I've started hearing more about false negatives, and our area is still SO RIFE with growing cases that I'm not sure it's the best idea with the deadline.
The problem is you can be infected, but the test won't necessarily come up positive during the incubation period.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/world/sorry-but-a-negative-test-does-not-give-you-a-green-light-for-thanksgiving.html
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I am surprised (and pleased) he offered the Covid test option, but I've started hearing more about false negatives, and our area is still SO RIFE with growing cases that I'm not sure it's the best idea with the deadline.
The problem is you can be infected, but the test won't necessarily come up positive during the incubation period.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/world/sorry-but-a-negative-test-does-not-give-you-a-green-light-for-thanksgiving.html
Yep. I mentioned being pleased because other conversations this year suggest he thinks everything is overblown (you know, like mask use), so I appreciate that he loves me enough to take measures so we might spend the holiday together, even if those measures are not really sufficient. I will suggest a family walk somewhere pretty outside instead. I don't think he'll be surprised.
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We had another conversation concerning Christmas with relatives who routinely downplay the seriousness of COVID. The mental gymnastics they used to justify their beliefs were impressive. Apparently social media rumor is factual if it comes from the right sources even if it can be fact checked as false from a dozen other sources. Oh and despite being high risk due to age and other factors - they've decided not to get the vaccine when available.
They made a statement about not buying anything from China this Christmas. That's why they are still shopping in the stores. Because the things sold in the stores (WalMart, Target, etc) are rarely from China while much of what is sold online is from China. DW let that one go.
....Oh boy!
Fortunately DW had a positive, loving conversation with our elders and let them know gently that we won't be coming. Our state is at or near the top of the COVID list now. Thankfully I have DW for these conversations b/c if I were the primary speaker it would sound unintentionally a little like "you're stupid, you're stupid, you're stupid." I can be blunt.
My intended message would be is look at the labels of what you are buying in your favorite store, you'll find PRC or China often printed there. Read a book. Go for a socially distanced walk. Turn off Fox News. Close Facebook. Play cards. We love you and will call you often this week. ;)
DW and I might do a socially distanced gift drop off at everyone's house. Park the gift on the front porch, back away from the house and call. Wave from halfway across the yard and maybe a quick chat. It'll be a few hours in the car b/c we are not in the same city. We are the cautious ones in that part of the family though indications are that two more may finally have seen the light too.
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My extended family is outwardly accepting of outdoor gatherings and less in person contact but I've heard from others that they have no idea why we started withholding their grandchildren when the case numbers started skyrocketing.
They simply don't understand the pandemic at all. They are focused only on themselves and convinced that they aren't doing anything that would exposed them (despite going stores and one household member has public interaction job). They don't care or ask whether we are staying home, etc, but they know we have kids involved in some masked activities.
It's impossible to discuss the issue with them at all, it's like talking in circles. I had sympathy at first, they are older. But the complete lack of caring about how difficult they are making the situation for us has really grated on me.
The level of self involvement is unbelievable. They seem to assume a special waiver of pandemic protocols because we generally spent a LOT of time together and they babysat (at their too frequent request - are any other parents experiencing very pushy grandparents?). That's not how it works, folks!
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I'm seeing all this and I have to say this.
BEING OLDER IS NOT AN EXCUSE.
I'm older. My friends are older. We are all being careful.
There is idiocy in Canada as well as the US. More of the idiocy I am seeing is in the younger groups.
So you may want to give these people an out, but don't give them an out because they are older. Unless they are sliding into senility, of course.
This rant brought to you by a raging (not) granny.
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I don't mean to imply any cognitive issues or the like. They are putting the 'older' thing at issue by suggesting that we are at fault by not giving them, as grandparents, whatever access to our children that they want. This was a problem before, but the pandemic has made it far worse. Maybe they are acting like they don't understand or maybe they truly don't. I have no idea. They are also gratuitous gift givers, generally with strings that they pretend aren't there. So this is clearly a boundary issue. But they are so generous with their time, how can we complain?
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We have had some guilt thrown our way because we didn’t want any parental units in our house. They stopped in the garage to drop off gifts for about 5 minutes. A few hours later we got notified that a member of our household was exposed to COVID. The next day we got a notice that another member of our household was exposed to COVID. This is why I don’t want anyone in our house! We are protecting them probably more than protecting ourselves.
Now here’s to hoping we don’t end up with a houseful of COVID for Christmas! And that by summer we can be safe and able to visit our extended family again. I am really missing my siblings and only seeing each other every 2-3 years is hard enough.
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We've had exactly one person in our house since March - teenager's friend who would not stay outside, even though we told him to.
So, he wants to hang out again, and his mom suggested the back yard. I said "sorry, that didn't work last time". So, beach it will be. Masked. Just to hang out/ walk/ whatever. He might not agree to wear a mask but DS will.
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I don't mean to imply any cognitive issues or the like. They are putting the 'older' thing at issue by suggesting that we are at fault by not giving them, as grandparents, whatever access to our children that they want. This was a problem before, but the pandemic has made it far worse. Maybe they are acting like they don't understand or maybe they truly don't. I have no idea. They are also gratuitous gift givers, generally with strings that they pretend aren't there. So this is clearly a boundary issue. But they are so generous with their time, how can we complain?
So it's not an age issue, it's a lack of boundaries and sense of entitlement issue. At least you are setting a good example to your kids about setting boundaries.
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I don't mean to imply any cognitive issues or the like. They are putting the 'older' thing at issue by suggesting that we are at fault by not giving them, as grandparents, whatever access to our children that they want. This was a problem before, but the pandemic has made it far worse. Maybe they are acting like they don't understand or maybe they truly don't. I have no idea. They are also gratuitous gift givers, generally with strings that they pretend aren't there. So this is clearly a boundary issue. But they are so generous with their time, how can we complain?
So it's not an age issue, it's a lack of boundaries and sense of entitlement issue. At least you are setting a good example to your kids about setting boundaries.
Yes, I was sympathetic to their desires because they are older and concerned about not having enough time with the grandkids while they are still young. I don't know if their behavior and lack of understanding about the virus is age related or not, but this type of misunderstanding has certainly increased with their age
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Will be having an outdoor, masked and/or distanced event with my side (three households). Other side of the family dropped off gifts and we will do Zoom when kids open presents if they are willing. Seems like they have finally accepted our boundaries, which is nice. My family was always fine with our boundaries. If we manage to get CoVid from our outdoor/distanced/masked affair, then so be it. My kids have only played with my nephew since March (outside, masked). Looking forward to it.
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We're starting to face some guilt from family - we cancelled Thanksgiving with my mother and didn't let her come for my birthday either. Practically speaking we've cancelled Christmas with my father (PA requires a 14 day quarantine or negative COVID test on entering the state, and my dad is out of state). Both my mother and MIL heard that we didn't think we'd be able to see my dad as planned, and immediately attempted to slot themselves into that spot, since they're both in PA. When I said no, my mom took it a little hard but didn't argue. MIL, on the other hand, promptly suggested that we all do a 7 day quarantine ahead of time, so we can see her. A) I work through the 23rd, so quarantining is not practical. B) I have a hard time telling my mom we can't see her at all, then going ahead and seeing MIL (who we saw in Nov for DH's birthday). C) Everyone has a different idea of what 'quarantine' means, and I don't know if her definition lines up with mine, and I don't want to have that conversation.
Trying to bring people around to a drive by to drop off gifts, followed by a zoom call to open them together. Dad's gifts will have to be mailed, so I'm trying to get things together early.
Updates:
We saw my mom and sister last weekend to exchange boxes of gifts. Sat with them a few minutes to chat (masked). We will have a video chat Christmas day with Mom to open gifts together.
I mailed my dad's gifts, then found out he's going to come up to visit my sister in defiance of the PA travel restrictions. They plan to come by for a porch drop off on Christmas eve or day, but we made clear that they can't come in and we can't hang out. We will probably have a video chat once they get back and open together.
We are starting quarantine today to see MIL on the 30th.
Still deciding what to do for FIL - currently it's either stop by on our way back from MIL's to drop off gifts, or meet for dinner during the next few days. I have mixed feelings on that, but we'll see how it goes.
We aren't seeing SIL - will have to mail her gifts after Christmas (DH isn't finished making one yet). Normally she would come down to MIL's and probably quarantine together, but this year she is dealing with fleas. More isolating than COVID!
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OP here... How did the holidays turn out for you all? Did you survive the holiday guilt? Is your family still speaking to you?
Things went well overall around here. We broke the news to my mother several months ahead of time so the bandaid was ripped off early so she has plenty of time to get used to the idea... plus, over the course of the following weeks she came to the same conclusion that it probably makes sense in light of the ever-rising COVID tide. She wasn't happy about it at first, sent sad-face emojis, etc... to guilt us, but she eventually came around.
The past few days she's been texting me news stories about breakouts, prominent people testing positive, etc... asking if I think we'll make it through this without contracting it ourselves, etc... showing signs of being really worried about the pandemic. I advised she'll likely be ok if she stays away from restaurants, gyms, small spaces, etc... then she tells me she's got a friend coming over after work tonight and "it should be ok since we'll stay 6 feet apart". So the words don't match the actions, but she's a grown up so she can make her own choices. I advised her to open windows to at least keep circulation moving around.
Holidays were fine for us, seemed weird not to be frantically driving over the countryside to accommodate everyone else's holiday wishes, but overall it was nice to stay home, relax, cook, etc...
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We did well. I'm proud of my family and friends. We stayed at home in our respective bubbles, and compensated with plenty of food deliveries to each others' homes.
Happy New Year, everyone! Here's to a healthier, saner 2021.
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We did Christmas dinner much the same way as thanksgiving. We managed to get ready to eat at the same time and ate dinner together via FaceTime on our iPads. After dinner we opened presents, again via video chat. Not the same as being there, but it was the right choice for 2020.
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All but one package arrived on time, and the last made it to me but I didn't have time to send it to mom. It was a duplicate anyway, she'll get it next time she's here. Did a 2-3 hour zoom on Christmas morning. Pretty funny when the biggest tech issues are caused because people are half asleep still and can't figure out how to see the giant camera button in the middle of the screen.... (me)
Parents ended up getting the most gifts, which was funny. Lot of books. Need to remember to call their local library and figure out how mom can pick up books, her card is likely expired.
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Well, we live on the opposite coast, so it was fine. We chatted on the phone or zoomed.
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We did socially distanced gift drop offs. Looked like a series of drug deals. Masks, packages placed in the open garage, carefully backing away while maintaining eye contact, etc. ;)
Went well even with the COVID unconcerned relatives. Nobody sick yet.
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my mother lives 13 hours away by vehicle, and she is very high risk, with multiple autoimmune diseases already. She has been quarantined since the beginning. My family stocked up on food, and stayed in the house for 14 days prior to her arrival. We had no symptoms after that period of time, so she drove with my brother (who also has comorbidity risk) who is in her germ family. They drove their RV and didn't go into any buildings and only stopped for gas once, paying at the pump. She stayed here for 5 days. We were not socially distant while here. She drove back the same way.
It was probably a degree of risk, but we accepted it, and minimized the likelihood of transmission. Now, a week later, no symptoms. It was challenging to stay completely in the house (and outside in our yard with no contact with others) for 3 weeks straight, but it is what we did to feel safer about our spending time with family.
we will be having a socially distant outdoor xmas with my wife's parents next week, after we've gone 2 weeks without symptoms post my mom's visit.
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Had trouble with the post office. Mailed a regular first class letter to someone in the same state on December 4 (dropped it directly at the post office), they didn't get it until December 28! About 3 hours away by car.