Christmas in the time of Covid? Following the adventures of covid Thanksgiving, do you consider yourself better adapted toward the possibility of extracting a Merry Christmas from amidst the gloom?

I have had a lot of different kinds of Christmases over the years, and I see this as another different kind. With all the communication available to us now, no one will be left out, the day will just be much lower key, the food will be a bit simpler, and the gifts to be mailed will go out in late January.

I danced in a Chanukah celebration (outside, distanced, everyone wore masks) and for Christmas I’ll make my husband dinner. Our town squares have decorations up and I want to go one evening when it’s not busy. I’ve been doing more curbside pick-up for groceries to limit contact with people. No Christmas shopping. Hoping for the best.

I don’t know. The thing that floored me this past Thanksgiving was the shocking number of people who stopped by here in the days around Thanksgiving to drop off desserts and a truly shocking pile of wine & booze. The wife (clever girl) did a first class job of dividing up the edibles into reasonable portions of every variety in big airtight containers & demanded that those who donated return to each retrieve one of them. I wheeled the garage fridge into the alcove at the foot of the stairs, removed the shelves and stacked the containers in the fridge. Our “guests” arrived, and we would buzz them in through the gate then into the door with all the warmth and familiarity you might expect from a visit to your ATM machine. It was an adventure of sorts and actually fun.

Oh and the wine & booze we’ll save for one helluva post covid celebration.

Here, in my area (NY/CT), there are several drive-by light tours, where they have maps of people who are participating, and you can drive by at night and see their houses lit up.

As for Christmas itself, I expect it will be like Thanksgiving, where we stay home. We have friends not far away who invite us all the time, and they invited us for Thanksgiving but we opted out. They will probably invite us for Christmas, but I expect we’ll stay home that day, too.

If I’m home on Christmas as I will be this year, it’s a pretty quiet day. I make a nice breakfast and will probably eat in front of my fire in my pjs. Open some packages of treats. I’ll probably Facetime with my California kids at some point. I did invite a couple of neighbors over for afternoon tea but that was before the latest wave. Unless we can eat outside, that won’t happen. Very likely will take a walk with a friend at some point. Honestly it doesn’t bother me although when my kids were home it was one of the high points of the year.

I work on Christmas so other than my brother coming over and us having a mini celebration after I get off I wont be doing much on the day.

We are celebrating in January with family. Not a huge gathering, just a few people. I get tested twice a week so I personally am not concerned about the household I live in. Just the others.

Keep calm and carry on, as the popular bumper sticker says. We“ll have to muddle through the Holidays as best we can. Unusual times we live in, but there have been worse in the human experience.

This Christmas will be no different from the past few years. Immediately family only at our house. No traveling required.

I have no complaints.

Thanksgiving this year was spent alone and essentially ignored. Christmas will be spent with the SO. We are both looking forward to spending it together without any family gatherings due to COVID-19.