It’s not too late to decide to stay home for Thanksgiving
It’s not too late to decide to stay home for Thanksgiving.
It may break your heart, and maybe someone else’s, not to have the Thanksgiving of your plans and dreams. But think of it this way: Sacrifice can be an act of gratitude. Giving up something for the common good is a form of giving thanks.
In the pastweek, a lot of people have finally made the hard decision to forgo the Thanksgiving theywant. Until the past few days, with the holiday knocking louder all the time, they’d held out hope that this Thanksgiving could at least approximate the holidays of memory and ritual.
Then they looked at the data, heeded thewarnings and changed their minds.
No need to go over all the data here. We’re numb withCOVID-19 data. One number will suffice: 250,000. A quarter-million Americans. Dead in only a few months fromthis treacherously contagious virus.
That fact penetrates a little more every day, along with the understanding that whenwe travel, the virus does too.
I’ve been hearing heartbreaking Thanksgiving stories allweek. Of canceled flights. Canceled hotel reservations. Difficult phone conversations.
Onewoman wrote to tellme howsad she is that she canceled plans for her 75-year-old mother to join her and her husband for dinner. Nowhermomwill spend Thanksgiving alone. Sheworries that she’ll see Facebook photos of other people’s festive family gatherings and “feel like a chump for following the rules.”
Honestly, I’m not sure what I’d do ifmy motherwere still alive and inmy Thanksgiving equation, but I do knowthat erring on the side of safety is not being a chump. It’s an intelligent sacrifice, and sacrifice takes courage.
The decisionswe make about howto spend Thanksgiving rarely involve just ourselves. Wemake them in relation to friends and family who may not see the situation thewaywe do.
One ofmy former colleagues— his name is Casey— tells the story of howhis sister and parents have planned to rent a house for aweek with family members fromIllinois and Florida. He thought the ideawas dicey and started a family email thread to say so.
“That mostly pissedmy sister off,” he says.
Afterward, he did some research. He read that trying to convince people with factswon’t
change hearts. So he sent his parents a heartfelt note about friends and co-workers who have lost parents. He told them that’s what he’d be thinking about all week if the Thanksgiving gatheringwent ahead as planned.
“OnMonday morning,” he says, “my typically non-expressive dad sent me one of the mostmoving messages I’ve ever gotten, saying essentially, ‘Nowyou knowwhat you put us through as a teenager. We’re staying home. Thanks for pushing.’ ”
Itwas an uncomfortable discussion but hewas glad that he spoke up— not stridently, but out of love.
Canceling may even prove to be a relief. On Thursday, the daughter of a friend called to cancel their small, outdoor get-together.
“I think it’s best,” my friend says. “We allwould have been really tense. Which isn’t fun. We’ll Zoom like everyone else.”
No onewants to be shamed or bullied into canceling their Thanksgiving plans, and in some cases traveling and a small gathering may beOK.
But theCDCsays stay home. Epidemiologists say stay home. So does decency in the name of the common good. You could call that decency patriotic.
I decided threeweeks ago not to joinmy brother and his family in Colorado, which I’ve done for many years. Itmademe sad. Still does. But the right thing is often the hard thing.
The key to turning this difficult choice into something easier is to think creatively. We can ask ourselves: Howcan I reframe Thanksgiving?
Onewaywould be to turn it into a day of reflection instead of a conventional celebration. Give thanks in a differentway. By taking awalk and admiring theworld around you. By giving money to a food pantry. By sending a thankyou note or text to someone you care about.
Make this sacrifice for the exhausted and endangered health careworkers. Make it for family and friends and strangers. Make it for the future. And for yourself.
Thanksgiving is just one day. It will come and go so fastwe’ll barely remember what the fuss was about.
It’s not too late.
The decisions we make about how to spend Thanksgiving rarely involve just ourselves. We make them in relation to friends and family who may not see the situation the way we do.