GTKY- Holiday celebrations

[waverly]

What are your plans for celebrating the holidays?  


So far for Thanksgiving, I am not planning to host (too much guilt if I get someone sick and it involves people flying or driving long distances).  We usually are the hosts. I took the week off and we are going to book something, I think.  Maybe I will look for something today.  I need to find a state that won't be on our quarantine list though.  The only state that would be "safe" from that is the state we live in. 

Christmas, we don't usually host.  People usually come later for DD's birthday.  I haven't thought about this one yet. 

Last year we did Hawaii, and it was great (except my mom complained the entire time).  We missed out on some major in-law drama involving my SIL missing her plane, her in-laws being 4 hours late, an awkward cemetery tour, and a breakdown over the cooking since her in-laws were 4 hours late. So overall I think Christmas in Hawaii was a win.  

[k3am]

We usually host for Thanksgiving. We will host this year, but probably keeping it smaller, likely with just DH's parents and potentially our neighbors since they don't have family in the area and we socialize with them anyways.

Christmas is where we're not so sure. We usually go back to my hometown and spend the holidays with my family. My mom is the one we'd be most worried about, but at this point, I think skipping the holiday would be really hard on her. We still have some time to see how things play out as we enter cold/flu season. The hotel we usually stay at is dirt cheap right now ($100 for a king two-room suite, vs we usually pay ~$425 a night) and has a flexible cancellation policy, so I'm contemplating just booking the stay now.

ETA: I have asked my mom and my sisters their comfort level on it, and they're all okay with it. My mom is to the point where she says loneliness is likely to kill her if the virus does not. 

[twinmomma]

Thanksgiving - we'll spend the long weekend at my parents' house with beau and his son. Since our annual Black Friday tradition is out the window this year, we are thinking we'll double up and use the time together for our annual holiday cookie baking weekend too.

Christmas - going to be a total disaster. ExH has the girls Christmas Eve into Christmas morning for the first time. Beau and son will be living here at that point, but beau's son's holiday schedule is still TBD because mom is not a planner. We'll do some kind of Christmas dinner with my parents and siblings later in the day on Christmas day, once I pick up the kids. There will be no extended family get togethers of any kind.

Beau's family is all far away, so he's planning to take an extended 2 week trip down to visit them in January/February since his son is doing remote school and they can just log in from there. The girls and I can't go, otherwise they'd have to quarantine from school for two weeks after the trip, so it's a mess to coordinate. I'm really bummed, I want to hang out with his sisters. But it's not worth the school issues we'd run into when we come home.

[waverly]

twinmomma , the baking sounds fun. Maybe DD and I will do a baking day.

I think DH feels some way towards his family because SIL was coming to town they insisted we host them plus SIL's in-laws, and then DH and SIL's mom spent the afternoon telling mean stories about DH. The stories eventually became positive at the end, but it wasn't for like 30 minutes into them. So I also don't think he wants to host because of that.  Typical teenage behavior turned positive when he grew up, I mean don't we all have those stories where we are different from our parents?

[mommyatty]

We sometimes host my BFF and her family for Thanksgiving but probably won’t this year. So we will have a little Thanksgiving. For Christmas I’d like to go away somewhere, preferably a cabin where there is snow. But I don’t want to get on a plane so it would have to be driving distance. Maybe Arkansas? We have friends who have a cabin there that they rent out.

[waverly]

mommyatty, that sounds pretty.

[186momx]

Well DH is a Grinch when it comes to all holidays.

Thanksgiving DD and I will go to my mom's house 2 miles away and do dinner with my sibs like normal. DH normally goes over to visit friends but that probably won't happen this year. I'm looking at getting a camp spot and taking the camper to the coast for the Friday-Sunday weekend. We can only reserve 2 weeks prior to the date wanted so that puts a damper into planning things.

Christmas DH has already stated that he wants to forget it and not decorate inside or out, no baking, no tree, no gifts and just treat it as a normal day. DD and I will decorate, bake, put the tree up, and do gifts and DH will just have to deal. DD & I celebrate with my family on Christmas afternoon.

[mae0111]

I don't know what we're doing yet. Normally we go to visit my ILs for Thanksgiving, and either BIL or DH's aunt and uncle host, but I'm not sure if anyone is up for anything like that this year, and we will have to see how each state is doing.

Christmas will be weird this year. We usually spend it with my family, and we hosted last year (my parents, siblings and families). This year, one sister just had a baby so she isn't making the cross-country trip. So I think my parents will fly out to her. I invited my other sister over, and she won't commit to anything until like the day before, which is annoying because her crew is 4 adults and 2 teens, so not a small group to plan for.

I'm excited for Christmas this year. It's been such a crummy year overall that I really need something to look forward to. Christmas is it.

[twinmomma]

waverly , We do a huge baking weekend - my mom, sister, SIL, and I. (I am a terrible baker. I pour prosecco and take pictures and deal with my kids)
Last year I think we hit about 800 total cookies baked. Everyone takes them to holiday parties and to work and gifts them to friends/neighbors. We also just end up freezing a ton to eat all throughout the year too.

ETA - Clearly this year we will have to scale way back. LOL

[hermione]

I don't want to deal my brother making feel guilty for not wanting to go to his house for T'giving but I am just not comfortable. His kids will be back in school by then, my SIL teaches F2F in another school, at least six households in attendance. Just no.

So we booked a VRBO place up north for Wed-Sun. We will hang out, play board games, read, eat too much, and have a lovely time. It will be my parents and us (Me, husband, and 7yo DD).

We usually host Christmas and just won't this year. I will invite my parents to spend the night Xmas Eve and be here for Xmas Day but they may choose to go to one of my brothers' houses for Christmas since I am kidnapping them for T'giving - and that's fine. Either way, same plan - yummy food, play with new toys, lay low.

[waverly]

twinmomma , I normally feel that the holiday season is rushed, and do everything in my power to minimize most of it. But this year, I think it will be much more chill, so I might have time to bake. I'm not normally a baker, but Covid quarantine proved otherwise. Basically I will do a lot more than I thought I would with a lot of time on my hands. Although I was working and e-learning at the same time, e-learning was mostly asynchronous so we were done by 11 am, and weekends were empty in the spring.  I reached the Banana bread stage, but not the sourdough starter stage.   

[madringal]

Thanksgiving will probably look the same. We host my ILs, my dad, and my sisters family.

Christmas will probably be different. We normally go to my aunts and celebrate with my cousins and their families. One of my cousins and her husband are both physicians and so we haven't seen much of them this year. They have really kept their circle very small, bc chances are high they have been exposed and bc they obviously don't want to spread it to patients if they are exposed socially. But this will be the first Christmas without my uncle and it makes me sad to think their family will be all alone. We will take their lead, if they are comfortable, we will all go over for dinner. If they are not, we won't.

[supertrooper1]

Everyone that I spend the holidays with is already in my bubble, so nothing will change. I don't know specific plans yet since it depends on what days DS is with me and what beau's family is doing.

[sdlaura]

Our holidays will look pretty similar, but we will host Thanksgiving dinner outside and only socialize outside (or inside with masks) when my sister and family visit. We realize there's certainly still risk involved with a lot of outdoor interaction, but have made a decision we're comfortable with. We're lucky to be in SoCal.

My sister and BIL and 3 kids (under 10) are flying cross country for Thanksgiving. My parents will have already been in town for a month. They will stay at my parents' condo and my parents will stay in a hotel. We'll go to the beach and the kids are doing surf camp together. If they didn't come now, it would be over a year since we'd all seen each other, and it makes more sense for them to come here than vice versa because of us having a baby.

For Christmas, we typically are on our own, since family is so far away. We were going to go to Hawaii 12/26 for a week, but decided to cancel. Luckily the house I booked in January on VRBO just happened to be fully refundable until 60 days in advance. We will still do something, since the kids are all off for two full weeks. It may be renting a place in the desert, or we may have some friends from Portland and Boulder fly in for that week (again renting their own places and socializing outside). 

[vasc]

Halloween - have decided to skip TOTing, but rather have a little party with just the four of us. Kids will do a candy shopping spree, fill a pinãta with the candy, bust the pinãta, maybe did bobbing for apples and donut game, and likely also a fire pit if weather cooperates. We are re-using costumes we already own.

Thanksgiving - DH and I celebrate our 10 year anniversary on 11/21 and we’ve reserved a cabin in the Smoky Mountains as a getaway. ILs will stay with the kids Sat-Wed and then bring the kids to the cabin for the rest of the week for Thanksgiving. We’ve thrown around the idea of visiting a nearby Cherokee casino while there. Also have tickets to the Polar Express Train. Those two items are not going to be as socially distanced as I’d prefer.

Christmas - No real plans yet. We usually stay home anyway with no guests.

[waverly]

DH booked our Thanksgiving place. It is literally in the middle of nowhere so there won't be much to do unless the weather is nice enough to go to state parks around there. Very iffy for Thanksgiving. It could be 60 and sunny or it could be 30 and snow.

The place is huge and beautiful though with a game room for the kids.