2020’s incredible shrinking Thanksgiving

I cannot count the number of people who have told me this year that Thanksgiving is their favorite holiday. Food, family, friends, football. And no presents. What’s not to like? Thanksgiving is also one of my favorite holidays.

So how to celebrate in 2020? Like many others, early on, our family, our “pod” had plans that were based on past practice. We would go to Maine for another weekend extravaganza with around 25 relatives and friends, a long-standing tradition for this group that gathers from all over the Northeast. But the hosts called it off, via a regretful blast email, creating the first break in decades. We were disappointed but not surprised. We agreed with their decision.

Perhaps a smaller family group might get together in Vermont, where we could finally spend time with a new baby grandson and other children and grandchildren. But during the elaborate plans for COVID testing and pre-travel quarantine, we and the youngerbut-wisers didn’t feel safe and this idea was abandoned. We soon learned that there were different levels of risk assessment among family members and even poddies, leading to friction and fraught decision-making.

We decided to join friends in their nearby home. They are a father and son who mostly stay sequestered, have invested in an elaborate air purification system, and have room to spread out indoors while dining. But with the recent rise of COVID cases in our area, even that felt risky. And with all the precautions before and during, would we actually enjoy ourselves?

Scaling back yet again, my husband and I decided to eat in our own home, but perhaps invite my daughter and son, who live in their own homes in adjoining towns. Except she’s a nurse and he works in a greenhouse alongside other employees. Gerry and I are over 70, so maybe not. It looks like this year will be “The Old Folks At Home.”

How do I feel about this? I apologize for being an optimist, a Pollyanna. I apologize because no one wants to interact with a cheerful person when they themselves are sad about the loss of a favorite tradition. Even I would rather spend time with Eeyore than Piglet or, God help us, Tigger. With Eeyore, the two of us could grouse about falling off the gravy train. (And I apologize again, this time for the confusion of the word “grouse” while talking turkey.)

Upon the loss of a beloved holiday, you’d probably rather be with a downhearted sympathizer than the person at the funeral who says that life will go on and that this was meant to be. Embracing the negative must be some corollary to Mark Twain’s comment that he would prefer heaven for the climate and hell for the company. Yet I may be the exception, an upbeat person whose survival strategy does not involve accentuating the positive.

I do not look forward to this Thanksgiving. What is my advice for passing the day and season? Even before COVID, whenever something bad happened or I felt down, I would tackle an odious task that I had been avoiding. Think income taxes or closet cleaning. My rationale has been that my mood is already ruined, so I might as well accomplish something. That way I will look back later and think, “At least I cleaned the closet.”

During this pandemic leading up to Thanksgiving and then Christmas, I am clearing out and organizing a huge barn that has been accumulating household “treasures,” and plain old detritus, for decades. I find myself reflecting on the past, reaching backward, as I examine my stuff (stuffing?) during this time when we cannot extend sideways or move forward. It is not exactly making lemonade, but there is value in how I am using this time that in earlier holiday seasons was spent cooking, baking or traveling.

On Thanksgiving itself I will stay home with my dear Gerry. I am grateful not to be alone. We will eat turkey and some but not all the trimmings and, I hope, not grouse. It is a very different Thanksgiving, a situation that I cannot change. In missing them, I will love more than ever those with whom I usually share the holiday and meal. Our prayer will acknowledge the lives that have been lost and the suffering of other families. In future years I will appreciate gathering with a wider circle, because I will remember the year when we could not.

I ran my Thanksgiving plan by Eeyore. His first response? “The sky has finally fallen. Always knew it would.” But then, “The nicest thing about the rain is that it always stops. Eventually.” Eeyore actually said both of those things. And until the rain stops, Eeyore and I plan to have a Thanksgiving to remember.