The safe thing to do this holiday season is to stay at home and celebrate with your immediate family.
I know many people are chafing at this message. They did not want to stay home at Thanksgiving. They had parties with friends and extended families.
We are all tired of this pandemic. Many of us are suffering from anxiety and depression, due to the constant worry and social isolation.
I noticed people were putting up Christmas decorations in their homes very early this year. One of my friends really loves the holiday and always starts early, but this year she was talking about it around Halloween. Why? The lights and decorations make her happy. Usually she’s in the minority with her eagerness, but now more people are looking for sparks of joy.
I don’t get super excited about the holidays. I think I got burned out years ago, by more than 20 years of Christmas travel. We would wrap all the presents here in Maine, load them in the car, then drive to my mother’s house in southeastern Massachusetts for Christmas Eve. Then the next day we would head up to Paul’s parents’ house near Worcester. We would usually meet with Massachusetts friends the day after Christmas. Then we’d finally head home, often taking my mother with us.
It was exhausting. Of course it was wonderful to get together with friends and family and enjoy good food. But it was stressful and draining, too.
Eventually, my mother moved in with my sister and brother-in-law in Rhode Island, which was a little closer to Paul’s family. But then Paul’s father died, and a few years later, his mother went into extended care. My mother was in an assisted living facility for five months before she passed away in 2009. My mother-in-law, Rita, died in the following year.
Christmas lost its festiveness as our parents aged. Paul’s father was in a nursing home for a few months before he passed. We visited him while he ate Christmas lunch before returning to the family home.
One year we spent the holiday in a hotel after visiting Rita in her nursing home. I had made sandwiches for our dinner, but decided that was too depressing. So we went to a Chinese restaurant, the only one open in town. I felt like the family in the movie “A Christmas Story.”
For the last holiday spent with my mother, I made a chicken pot pie (her favorite) and mashed potatoes and we brought them and the rest of the fixings to her tiny apartment in Rhode Island. Though I am glad we were able to spend that time with her, at the time it felt very sad.
Christmas has never been either traditional or picture-perfect for us. I tell these stories because I firmly believe every single person can survive having a simple, stay-at-home holiday with immediate family. Because we have. Not only did we make it through the pain of seeing our parents ill and unhappy in institutional settings, we have spent the last decade celebrating Christmas at home, just the two of us.
Occasionally, a friend would spend part of the day with us, but now she too has passed.
So it’s just me and Paul. We open our presents in the morning, have a nice lunch, and then watch a movie—often, “A Christmas Story.” I make a tourtière, a French-Canadian meat pie, for Paul on Christmas Eve, so we have leftovers for supper on the day itself. I appreciate the quiet and peace, and always recognize the many things that can go wrong to prevent that from happening.
One year, for example, there was a storm on Christmas Eve and the power went out, so I was unable to make tourtière. Instead, we heated a can of soup on the woodstove. I made the pie for New Year’s Eve instead.
You have to go with the flow.
Of course I miss seeing people. In November of 2019, our friends Al and Judy came up from West Springfield, Mass., and we met them for lunch in Freeport. My sister, Maggie, and her husband, Gary, came from Rhode Island and we went with them to pick up their new basset hound puppy, Atticus. I went to Boston in December on the Downeaster to spend the day with my friend Carol.
I am sad that these visits can’t happen this year. But I will survive.
This year, I’m looking for sparks of joy too. Paul and I always decorate the large fig tree in our living room—it’s so big there’s no room for an evergreen. We did this on Dec. 5, which may be a record for promptness. I like to leave the ornaments up until Epiphany, Jan. 6. Last year, though, we left the white fairy lights on until the spring solstice.
We’re already planning to do the same this year
I think it helps to focus on what we have instead of what we don’t. Has being healthy ever been more important? I think I will have my best Christmas ever if we aren’t sick or quarantining. Surely, at this point, that is the greatest blessing I could ask for.
Just make it through the holidays safely. And then look forward to next year.
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