Holiday plans?

[BlondeSpiders]

Now that fall is really here (these mornings have been CRISP) I'm starting to think about the forthcoming holidays and how we'll navigate them.

If you celebrate, (some Chandlers and Jake Peraltas hate Thanksgiving, and that's ok!) what would you normally do, and how do you expect it to change this year?


I only have my mom nearby. Well, she's in Bonney Lake which is not nearby, but at least it's in-state. Jesse's family is near Sacramento, and we try to fly down every other year or so at Christmas time. We will not be doing that this year! We'll probably have my mom come over for a few days at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that will be all. I will undoubtedly make way too much food, and we'll have too many leftovers to eat before they go bad and we have to throw them out.

I'm really hoping we'll be in our new house by Thanksgiving! At every place we viewed, I had to imagine where the tree would look best. 

[InBetweenDays]

We've gone skiing in Whistler with friends for Thanksgiving for probably 16 of the last 22 years. We already have our ski passes and our accommodations, but I'd say it is VERY unlikely that will happen this year.

H's family is in New Jersey so we won't see them. My brother and his family are in Montana so we likely won't see them either. My parents and sister and her family are on Bainbridge but I think my sister is going to Palm Springs (her MIL lives in SoCal and my niece is in college down there). I don't think we or my parents will want to make that drive, so what we'll likely end up doing is having my parents over here for the long weekend. We've had them over outside for lunch and/or dinner a few times, but we haven't spent any longer time together since February. I'm still nervous about having them inside (for their sake, not ours) so our plan would be to truly quarantine for two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving so they can stay for the weekend.

Not sure yet about Christmas. We'll stay local and see my parents and sister and her family, but not sure what exactly that will look like.

[InBetweenDays]

BlondeSpiders, I hope you get to be in your new house! When are you supposed to move in?

[BlondeSpiders]

Wow, I would love to have a ski trip as part of my regular holiday!

We just made an offer yesterday, so it's not in the bag yet. But the sellers want to close as quickly as possible and so do we. Hopefully that helps. We're aiming for a close date of mid-October. My lease ends October 31, so that would be perfect timing!

If this house falls through we'll have to start over, so maybe end of November in that case.

[smock]

Oh man, I barely have a handle on what's happening a few days in the future, so I haven't thought about holiday plans at all. I have family in town, though, so we'll probably just low-key celebrate.

What I REALLY want is a tropical vacation this winter, but that also seems unlikely. Sigh.

[Beeps (WOT?*)]

I'm sad that my daughter is relocating from Atlanta to Jacksonville. Her house has spectacular windows for a Christmas tree. She bought it basically for that purpose. My neighbors just bought a place in Monroe that also has amazing Christmas Tree Windows. I have a nice 2 story entry but we have a leather sectional my H loves and won't let me move so I can put a tree in the front window.

My daughter may be coming from ATL to visit in November . She's spending fall break with her sister-in-law and family and then looking to come out in November to see us and her dad. (Her brother is on his third round of chemo for his cancer so we're treading lightly.) We're all sheltering carefully but we'll have to see how it works out. I've been very cautious about travel, because H and I are both diabetic and kidlet is asthmatic. Christmas we'll have to figure out regarding whether the girls' mom comes for the holiday, which is likely. Son won't be able to travel cross the state because he works retail and needs to be in the store to oversee whatever he needs to oversee.

[theoriginalbean]

I think we'll have friendsgiving with the family we buddy buddy with and my sister's family, but the rest of our families are east (Maine and Jersey). I'm trying to not really think about it, I miss them a ton.

[pumpkin]

I usually spend Thanksgiving with family; sometimes it’s extended family (uncles/aunts and cousins, etc) though sometimes it’s just my parents, my sister and her boyfriend, me, and any friends who would like to join are always welcome.

Usually for Christmas we get together with extended family Christmas Eve and then Christmas dinner is usually “just us,” meaning my parents, sister and boyfriend, and me and sometimes my mom’s single friend.

However this year we won’t be getting together with extended family. And while I’m fine being indoors around my parents I’m much less keen about being suck with my sister and her boyfriend. They are both nurses, one in a pulmonary clinic and one in the ER; we know they’ve had COVID exposure and while they are still healthy I’m sure they’ll have additional exposures. And with my parents in their 70s I just don’t think it’s worth chancing anything. But we’ll see how it plays out. I think my mom sees this as I do, but we can’t really have the holidays without her...so we’ll see.

[7costanza]

My family and in-laws are all local-ish so we will probably plan to get together with just immediate family and skip the big extended family Christmas Eve celebration this year. A couple of my aunts are married/dating huge Trumpsters, so I’m actually not too upset about it. No matter the outcome of the election I have a feeling they will be insufferable. We’ve been seeing my in-laws, mom and her husband and my sister and her family since about June, and will continue to do so as long as everyone is limiting their exposure otherwise.

I’ve been surprised at how nice it’s been to have a low key summer without a ton of plans, so I’m looking forward to a cozy, low key holiday season too. I think the hardest thing to skip will be trick or treating.

[tacocat]

I'm a nurse and while I have not been in our covid wing for awhile I'm back in the hospital for awhile so I'll probably avoid my family until the holidays. As far as holidays go this year I'm having hip surgery at the end of October and shoulder surgery on mid December. This will let us stay home the 2 weeks before holidays so we can at least see our immediate families. BIL and SIL are in healthcare though so I might want to avoid them since my immune system will be down. I just don't know. Everything feels very up in the air and I will let my parents decide what they feel the most comfortable with. We usually see extended family and have 20ish people so that won't happen for sure.

The one thing we are doing is renting a house for my dad's 70th birthday surprise. His birthday is around NYE so we are all going to drive and just hang out in the same house. It's just immediate family and everyone is WFH or doing remote learning so it feels about as safe as can be.

I'm scared for the Christmas holidays since I'll be in a shoulder sling and my H will need to dress me and do my hair for 6ish weeks. I..... Will not look good, lol.

[macmars45]

tacocat your H might surprise you. I can't do my own hair due to my Cerebral Palsy. My H gives good ponytails and half ponytails. At one point about 5 years ago he was teaching himself to braid. If I had thinner hair I'd ask him to try a bun too.
*shrug*

[Nonny]

I think I posted about this on ML, but my MIL has been making noise about us visiting her for Thanksgiving, and that is just not going to happen. She's getting treatment for lung cancer at SCCA and she and my SIL have been coming and staying with us every 12 weeks, so the two of them will be in town in November about 1-2 weeks before Thanksgiving and we can do a big dinner then, just like we did last year. I already told my H that traveling to her isn't going to happen. I suppose he might capitulate and go, but if he does then I'm staying home alone.

I also figure we'll be staying here and celebrating Christmas just the two of us. My mom isn't doing well (long story, but she didn't do her PT properly after breaking her hip and having an emergency hip replacement, then fell a bunch more times, and now is essentially bed bound) and I know from my sister that they are lying to me (and themselves) about her progress. My dad has kind of been dropping hints about December, but my mom hasn't, which likely means she doesn't want me to come and see how badly she's doing anyway.

[BlondeSpiders]

Nonny, if J insists on going to his mom's house, you're more than welcome to come over to our new place!

[Nonny]

Sept 16, 2020 17:15:23 GMT -5 BlondeSpiders said:

Nonny, if J insists on going to his mom's house, you're more than welcome to come over to our new place!

Thanks for the offer. I'm really not worried about that happening to be honest. But also, a few years ago I spent Thanksgiving alone because I was sick and didn't feel up to traveling to her place so he went without me and I had a fabulous time by myself. I made a fancy turkey sandwich and watched a Modern Family marathon. It was actually pretty great. LOL!

[Nonny]

BlondeSpiders, wait, does this mean your offer was accepted? Did you get the house?

[picksthemusic]

My ILs recently bought a new home, so we're probably going to be hanging out there a bunch for the holidays (they're in our pod/bubble for covid), helping them get it all set up and figuring out decorations and such.

As far as Thanksgiving goes, we might do something with my mom since we haven't celebrated with her for a while, and she's also in our bubble. We need to spend time with my grandfather, too, since we don't know how many more holidays we'll get with him (he's 96).

We try to keep Christmas at home since we have our own traditions with the kids, but we might do the morning at our place and then the afternoon/dinner with the ILs this year since they'll be so much closer to us.

[BlondeSpiders]

Sept 17, 2020 0:07:31 GMT -5 Nonny said:

BlondeSpiders , wait, does this mean your offer was accepted? Did you get the house?

I didn't want to say anything until the whole deal was done, but they did accept! Just waiting on the appraisal. We should be able to close on 10/15.  

[tacocat]

Sept 16, 2020 10:12:22 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

tacocat your H might surprise you. I can't do my own hair due to my Cerebral Palsy. My H gives good ponytails and half ponytails. At one point about 5 years ago he was teaching himself to braid. If I had thinner hair I'd ask him to try a bun too.
*shrug*

He might! I'll try and be positive about it, lol.