Small, isolated plans are on the menu for Thanksgiving
With the coronavirus surging again, families grapple with limited gatherings
For the first time in her life, Jessica Jubin is fighting the holiday blues.
Thanksgiving has always been her favorite holiday. She was adopted, and as she saw it, that ritual dinner celebrated family — the most precious thing in the world. Now39 and married with a 6-year-old son, she hosts the dinner at her house. Every year, she preserves the moment with a family photo, starting the camera’s timer and hustling back to her spot before the flash.
This year, with life feeling fragile, Jubin wants more than ever to see her little family gathered around a table. She’s a cancer survivor. Her dad has had heart trouble; her mom is struggling with dementia.
Andnow, ontopof everything else, there’s COVID-19. On Tuesday, withHouston-area infection rates surging, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo asked residents to cancel their Thanksgiving plans and avoid multihousehold gatherings. OnWednesday, Johns Hopkins University calculated that the U.S. had crossed a grim milestone: 250,000 people dead of COVID-19. And judging from infection rates across the country, the worst is yet to come.
Jubin understood all that. But still, the news hit her hard: “It’s like, ‘Really? They’re taking Thanksgiving, too?’ ”
She’s hardly alone. This anxious year, the holiday blues seem different and more widespread, said Dr. Corinna Keenmon, a specialist in psychiatry and psychology at Houston Methodist.
In the past, Keenmon said, some people were overly
“There’s no getting around the fact that this is going to be a more difficult holiday. It just is.”
Dr. Corinna Keenmon, specialist in psychiatry and psychology at Houston Methodist
stressed by the demands they felt from friends and family — by the exhausting bustle, maybe, or their desire to host an impossibly perfect celebration or buy gifts they couldn’t afford. Others, with smaller families or alone, felt more isolated than usual, or that their lives weren’t measuring up.
This year, COVID-related restrictions on travel and gathering will sharply limit celebrations. For people who in other years felt overextended, thatmay come as a relief. But it also means that far more people than usual feel lonely, cut off from family and friends.
Her advice is the same as usual: Don’t idealize the holidays. Don’t expect perfection. Stick to a healthy routine. Watch out for drugs, alcohol and smoking
Passing sadness or anxiety is to be expected. But seek professional help — maybe a virtual appointment — if you notice prolonged changes in sleep; changed eating patterns; low energy or restlessness; a lack of feeling about things that used to bring you joy; or, in an extreme case, thoughts of hurting yourself or other people.
Keenmon suggested that people consider ways to make even a virus-safe holiday special: Playing nostalgic music at home, maybe, or cooking a special new recipe, and connecting by phone or Zoom with loved ones who can’t be near.
“But there’s no getting around the fact that this is going to be a more difficult holiday,” she said. “It just is.”
‘2020 is just weird’
For Thanksgiving, Antonio Martinez’s extended family usually gathers at his parents’ house insouthwest Houston. There are typically around 50 people, he said: aunts, uncles, grandparents, siblings, cousins, maybe somebody’s new girlfriend. His mom, Maria, cooks turkey and ham. His grandma brings tamales.
But not this year. Martinez said he’s been the
“mask Nazi” in his family, nagging everyone to take precautions. His aunts and uncles began taking him more seriously last weekend, after his great uncle died of COVID.
Now the usual celebration will be just six people, Martinez said: him and his wife, his parents and his grandparents. His mom is crushed.
“This is a whole different year,” he told her. “We have to roll with the punches. 2020 is just weird.”
For Denise Labrie’s big Creole family, Thanksgiving usuallymeans drifting from relative’s house to relative’s house. In Clear Lake, her sister’s bash usually involves a fried turkey, dirty rice andmaque choux corn, and if the weather is good, maybe a DJ out by the pool for dancing. This year, Labrie said mournfully, she doesn’t think anyone in her family is planning to get to
gether, except maybe by Zoom.That’s how the family celebrated hermom’s102nd birthday last week — an occasion that would normally have involved a hundred or so guests in a hotel ballroom. “I wishwe could have a big celebration,” Labrie said.
Of course, not everyone adores Thanksgiving. Adela Justice, a librarian, said that if it weren’t for her son, 7year-old Laurenzo, she’d skip it completely: “It’s a colonizer holiday.”
“That’s mean,” Laurenzo scolded her.
“See?” Justice laughed. “That’s why I have to celebrate it.”
Like a lot of Texans, the two of them usually load their Thanksgiving dinners onto trays in a Luby’s cafeteria line. But Justice isn’t eating inside restaurants these days, and with corporate liquidation threatening to make this Luby’s last
Thanksgiving, she worried that even the takeout vestibule of her local cafeteria would feel dangerously crowded. “So maybe we’ll go to La Madeleine,” she said.
Outdoor plans
As of Thursday, Jubin, the Thanksgiving lover, was still trying to figure out a new way to celebrate Thanksgiving with her parents. Dropping food off at their house and eating separately was still an option. But maybe, she thought, she could get a new table for her parents’ spacious patio, andweather permitting, the five of them could eat outside.
It won’t look like the other Thanksgivings in her photos. She’d made her peace with that. But she still wanted as much of the holiday as she could salvage.