The Holidays Won’t Be the Same This Year

The year 2020 will go down in history as the year when much of the world went into an indefinite holding pattern. Instead of attending parties, proms, graduations, weddings, funerals, and firework shows, we learned how to use Zoom and to work and run errands wearing masks. Instead of heading out to restaurants, bars, or the movies, we spent our weekends trying to order groceries, takeout food, masks, and toilet paper online.

Throughout the spring and summer, we told ourselves that if we could just get a handle on the spread of the virus, things would be normal by Halloween. But as Thanksgiving approached and the pandemic surged, we grappled with how to meet our need for social connection while avoiding viral exposure, with variable success.

Now we are midway through December, the holidays are rapidly approaching, and the normal pre-holiday frenzy has morphed into an unsettled, anticipatory nostalgia about how things will be different this year. But do we really need to let this virus suck the joy out of the holidays? Some of our most beloved Christmas carols ("Please Come Home for Christmas," "Blue Christmas," "I’ll Be Home for Christmas") are about the pain of not spending the holidays with people you love. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that world events have prevented people from celebrating the holidays as they wish.

Admittedly, staying home to protect the safety of others doesn’t seem very exciting or heroic. But I doubt that saving scrap metal and growing vegetables to support the war effort in WWII did either. However, without those sacrifices, things might have turned out quite differently.

So how can we meet the challenge of celebrating a meaningful holiday when we aren’t free to visit and travel as we wish, have already sacrificed many meaningful events, and in some cases lost jobs, family, and friends to this horrible virus? Perhaps this year will motivate us to invoke the “simpler” holidays that we all say we miss. Since we won’t have a frantic slate of parties and gatherings and are shopping online more than ever before, we should have more time to enjoy holiday activities like decorating and baking. Less socializing also means we don’t have to try to keep up with the Joneses or glossy magazines. The paper decorations the kids make and the not-so-perfectly iced sugar cookies we create won’t be on display for others to judge, so we can focus on the process, not the outcome.

We can also try new approaches to giving presents. Family and friend groups can agree to set caps on the costs of gifts, to shop only at thrift shops, to make gifts, or to exchange barter services. Rather than buying expensive wrapping paper, we can find ways to wrap presents using newspapers, grocery bags, dish towels, or other creative coverings.

If your family gathering will be smaller than usual, skip the heavy meal and experiment with something lighter, cheaper, or more unusual. If you don’t have the resources to put up fancy decorations, try being silly. Challenge your family to a “best centerpiece” contest with the caveat that they have to be made out of items you already have around the house. One year when I was in graduate school, my roommate and I used sheets of construction paper to create a life-size Christmas tree and fireplace, which we taped on the wall of our apartment. Another approach might be to organize a holiday happy hour, make your own ugly sweater contest, or have an off-key carol singing Zoom call.

If you will miss cherished traditions, put some thought into creating your own new rituals or practices. Play music by the same group while you appreciate the Christmas tree, reread beloved books, hide angels, elves, or candy around the house. Create a daily advent scavenger hunt with clues that lead to the next page of a story or stanza of a poem, or to pieces of a puzzle, or anything else you can come up with.

Incorporate meaningful symbols, stars, crosses, shamrocks… into your decorations. Have family members write down their happiest memory from the past year or something they really appreciate about another person in the group and read them out loud. Open presents one at a time, so you can savor the joy of both giving and receiving. If you will be alone, look for an opportunity to volunteer to deliver holiday meals, or treat yourself to a “personal day” doing only things you really like to do.

Of course, it would take less energy to sit on the couch, watching Netflix while waiting for 2020 to finally end. But traditions aren’t simply frivolous; they actually matter psychologically. Shared practices connect us to our families, our communities, our cultures, and our religions. They promote a sense of belonging and mark the passing of time and changing of seasons.

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Celebrating holidays can provide a sense of continuity and stability, even during times of uncertainty. While grieving for people who have passed away or who we can’t be with us can make us emotional, it also helps us to commemorate the people we have lost and to feel gratitude for those we love. Gift-giving and receiving solidifies our mutual connections and fosters reciprocity. Doing something nice for yourself makes it easier to have the energy to help others.

So, let’s resolve to meet this unprecedented holiday with the care, connection, and resilience the pandemic has reminded us we all need to thrive. I don’t know about you, but I feel certain that I can find a way to incorporate making a wish while snuffing (not blowing) out birthday candles into our holiday this year. Maybe we can do it virtually with the family members that can’t be with us, right after we pull our Christmas Crackers, a tradition we adopted after my daughter spent a semester abroad in England. Are you ready to add some creative new traditions to your own holidays? Tag, you’re it!