Making the holidays special if celebrating differently

[lindyanne]

Making the holidays special - if you’re not celebrating how you normally do, what are you doing to still make them special?

DH mentioned this this morning and I’m on board but he only has a few ideas and I’m just seeing extra work for me. 🤦‍♀️

[jinkies]

Our Christmas Eve is usually church and then a big extended family party, both of which are cancelled.

Since this is the first year in my life that we aren't rushing a quick dinner before church on Christmas Eve, I would like to do an especially nice dinner. Let DD set the table fancy, candles, the whole 9 yards. If the weather is nice, we'll do a walk around the neighborhood after dark. We do luminaries but we usually don't see them because our neighbor lights ours for us, and they are usually starting to burn out when we get home. Maybe we'll play a family game. I'm actually looking forward to it.

[sadlebred]

I usually go out to eat to one of my favorite nice restaurants on Christmas Eve but don't see that happening this year. I'll probably try to order a nice takeout meal to pick the day before that is made to reheat. Christmas Day is usually spent lounging around or riding my bike along with calls to family (plain old call--none of them do video calls) and friends. Dinner will probably be take out. Since I live in the suburb of a big city, quite a few local restaurants open after 4 pm on Christmas.

I am not putting up my tree this year (still fighting fatigue from surgery, so I have a good excuse). I'll decorate the fireplace mantel and put up some simple outdoor decorations like a door wreath and a swag on the mailbox but no lights. I have some other simple decorations I'll put up in the house.

I tend to keep my holidays simple.

[raangoli]

We're doing more in terms of decorating - our anniversary is this weekend and since we're not able to take a trip like I would want to, we've hatched a plan to decorate in a Hawaiian/Islands theme. Think inflatable palm trees, plastic leis, tropical garlands, etc. It's going to be so cheesey, but it is making us happy.

We also decorated more for Diwali which just passed - we hung (fake) marigold garlands, put up lights, and lit more diyas than usual.

For Thanksgiving, we are going to order our meal from a local restaurant to help support them. We did our usual decorating for this because its right on the heels of Diwali and our anniversary.

Christmas is TBD but I was thinking we would try to find a drive through lights show that might be fun to do. We're going to put up our tree right after Thanksgiving and maybe do some more decorations outside to make things a little more cheerful. We will probably order food again to support local businesses.

[wildrice]

This is a good question. I'm honestly not that sure. We have not seen family for the last 2 Thanksgivings, so at least this year isn't brand new for us. I plan to make a (smaller) traditional dinner for the two of us. We'll have appetizer type snacks for lunch and probably some mimosas. Perhaps we'll play a game or something just to do something fun that day. We normally would go to a Christmas market or do something similar during Thanksgiving weekend, but I kind of doubt we'll do anything special the rest of the weekend this year.

Christmas is the hard one. We did spend 1 Christmas just the 2 of us a few years ago, but otherwise I've always seen my family (his live in Europe so we never see them). This year I think we'll do stockings for each other and gifts - some years we don't do much, but I remember when we were alone last time it was fun to open extra stuff from each other. Again we'll have something special food-wise. We usually watch a bunch of Christmas movies leading up to the holiday, and I'd like to find some Christmas lights to drive around and look at.

I love the holidays but I'm anxious about them this year. This year has already been disappointing enough so I'm not really looking forward to the disappointment of things being different this year.

[ellipses84]

I’ve lived far from family and spent many holidays with only DH and I. What always helps me feel less homesick is to have the same traditional foods. At least I’ll have a meal to look forward to, and to make it easy, I’m not opposed to do pickup up/ catering, although I’ll occasionally make certain dishes that are unique to our family.

I’ll decorate more than normal to make it feel festive.

I’ll enjoy a nice relaxing holiday.

I’ll FaceTime my family.

I’ll do some unique holiday 2020 thing, like a drive thru Christmas display or drive in Christmas movie (we don’t normally have those here but we do now).

[ohgillian]

I did set up a zoom with a group of relatives for Thanksgiving morning. We would never all be together anyway, but all of us would in the past have been with at least one other person, and this year many of the group will be alone that day. I am excited about it!!

[winnied]

H and I lived 12 hours from our families for the first 10 years of our marriage and in its own way it was nice because it forced us to build our own traditions, just the two of us. We considered what we liked that our families did, what we hated that they did, and what we wished they did.

For Thanksgiving we watch the parade (it will be different this year), bake pumpkin muffins, and lounge around in PJs all day but dress up for dinner. The day after Thanksgiving we decorate for Christmas, make a fancy pants macaroni and cheese and drink a hella expensive bottle of wine while watching Home Alone.

For Christmas this year we'll be alone because we're expecting a baby at that time and she'll likely be here by then. We're making ridiculously simple yet indulgent meals and snuggling baby girl.

[Susie]

Our normal Thanksgiving of 20-30 relatives from all over the eastern seaboard has turned into just our immediate family of 4 at home.  It's a major downsize in menu, family, catching up, etc.  I'm super bummed about it.  Zoom and FaceTime aren't going to fix it.

Instead of trying, I'm going to try to look for positives.  Instead of being away from home all weekend, and then trying to cram in decorating for Christmas when we get back, I'm going to take my time, put up more lights than usual, etc.  It's not going to make Thanksgiving itself better, but it give some festiveness that I otherwise wouldn't fit in.

[chpmnk1015]

We usually host 25 to 35 people for thanksgiving... this year its 8 of us...so im using the good china lol..instead of paper plates..

[namasteak]

We normally see quite a few of the special showings at Alamo Drafthouse so we are going to do a weekly family movie night at home instead. This will include our neighbors that are like cousins to my kids & nieces/nephews to me ❤️ bonus is that it’s MM!

[So_Fetch]

There are some drive through light parades/displays happening this year in place of group events, so we will probably hit a few of those. We normally go to a big family party on xmas eve, but we are staying home. Probably do a movie and maybe fondue to make it special. Our biggest tradition is reading the Night Before Christmas before bed, so at least we can still do that.

[imojoebunny]

We normally go out for fondue, but that isn't happening. I found pre-made fondue at Aldi that you just put right into the fondue pot, so we will be having that either Christmas Eve, or New Years Eve, along with chocolate fondue. We did it on Thanksgiving Eve, and it was really fun. We are going to have a couple of outdoor get togethers with a few close friends, one at a time, in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I am giving more small gifts to friends this year, since we normally would have people over and spend $$$$ on entertaining and doing fun day and overnight trips with the kids friends over the break, none of which is happening.

It will be fun to find/make gifts, and to drop them off and maybe visit outside for a little bit individually with each neighbor/friend. I did this on my birthday, and it really made my day. I had a local artist make 10 necklaces for me, and I drove around to deliver them to my friends. It cost about the same, as I usually spend on my usual birthday get together, and made me feel happy and like the day was special.