The refrigerator is stuffed with Thanksgiving leftovers since no one came over. Cyber Monday will be here soon so heat up your credit cards. The tree and lights and ornaments need to be put up out of tradition but now it is just a chore. Streaming the same old Christmas carols just seems like Groundhog Day all over again.
You are Home for the Holidays.
With all the same folks you have been quarantined for months and no end in sight this is the end of the year. The time for good cheer with the same people you’ve been stranded with.
There is a month before the five presents under the tree are unwrapped, so what do you do?
You’ve put together all the puzzles. You’ve read every book. You’ve streamed every movie. Your kids are either taking college classes or rudimentary reading. All your favorite snacks taste like cardboard. If you had to go outside you couldn’t wear anything with a belt. The furniture is covered in blankets and animal hair. The sink is full of dirty dishes. You’ve forgotten where the deodorant is.
A Zoom session with family just wasn’t the same as dressing up, filling the car with people and dishes, remembering to lock the back door and turn off the stove, weaving in and out of traffic of other families avoiding scientific directions to stay home, spilling gravy on your new jacket, sweating in the kitchen, all talking and laughing at the same time when not filling your mouth with all manner of food your doctor recommends you not eat, retiring to the television to watch a virtual parade or a football game with empty stands before the tryptophan knocks you out. There is a reason why you only see these people once a year.
This year might be a good time to start a new holiday tradition.
Instead of feasting with the Indigenous people one could take the family to the local soup kitchen and work a food line spooning out powdered mashed potatoes and runny gravy to people who have no other place to eat. If adventurous go to an encampment of homeless to expose your children (and yourself) how the other half live.
Closer to home you could start raking the leaves in your yard, then offer to help a neighbor to help with their chores. A little stretching and bending over is called exercise.
When the weather gets bad, throw a tarp on the floor, hand everyone a paintbrush and refurbish a room. If you decide to be creative let the kids draw decorations on the walls. It may give a bit of personal spice to the room. It can be painted over later (or not).
Gather the family around the dining room table and pull out some old family pictures. Make a picture album while teaching your kids their ancestry.
If anyone has a musical flair, move the furniture back and create a stage. Play some instruments of Christmas carols or old songs that were important in the past. These moments can be a good teaching experience full of laughter and dancing. Don’t worry about filming it for an upload on social media. This is a moment your kids can tell their kids without a video documentary.
After spending months of complaining and wishing it would become normal again, it is time to realize what this time is giving us.
You are spending time with the person you vowed to spend the rest of you life with. You are spending time with the people you created. You are in the place you selected to live with all the collections you’ve gathered.
This shape shifting is presenting you with an opportunity only fantasized before.
Put down the remote, turn off the phone, shutdown the screens and revel in the new reality.
No one knows how long this adventure into the unknown will last; so make the best of it. Create memories that will be worth telling stories about. Great books are written about times like these. The museums are full of artistic documentations of event interpretations.
This is a moment in history to be remembered. Don’t waste your time.
