Togetherness, community, gathering. The three things that most medical professionals are warning Americans not to do for fear that it could spread the disease during a time when cases are already spiking. Unfortunately, they also are what people most love about Thanksgiving.
In years past, Thanksgiving has largely been a source of anxiety due to the intense meal preparation or awkward discussions about politics. For most families, the worst thing that could happen is you burn the turkey. But this year, these innocuous Thanksgiving gatherings could have grave consequences. Many families are finding workarounds though, ways to preserve both tradition and safety. A few OA students answered about how they handled one of their strangest Thanksgivings yet.
Most of the students I talked to, both in interviews for this article and in normal conversion, described their Thanksgiving as a blend between trying to get the family together and avoid a super-spreader. Longer tables, masks, zoom meetings–like most of the year, this Thanksgiving was defined by a desperate creativity, by makeshift solutions.
Andrew Livingstone, a freshman, had a small family gathering with “a lot less people” where they “everyone was very safe and they tried to social distance the best that” they could. Senior Alyssa LeBlanc described a similar scenario, where her family “ate at separate tables” and “maintained social distancing with masks on.”
There is a delicate balance that many families are grappling with, between safety and normalcy. LeBlanc goes on to describe how she “missed being able to hug and talk to [her] family normally (without masks)” and continue her tradition of making an apple pie on Thanksgiving.
Others, like senior Ana Dias and her family, decided to not meet up with extended family at all. But for her, “part of the excitement of Thanksgiving is spending time with family that I rarely see, and that was missing this year.”
Of course, there most likely were families who decided to ignore COVID precautions and gather without masks, which most likely will lead to a spike in cases in the following days and weeks. But for most, Thanksgiving was one in a long line of missed events. They had to decide if they wanted togetherness, community, gathering or if safety, health, and lives were more important.