Taryn Allen
Especially as the pandemic continues to escalate, going home for the holidays this year doesn’t really feel like an option.
But then it’s like the devil appears on my other shoulder, telling me to just say, “fuck it, life is short and the world is ending anyway.” I see people on social media taking vacations, enjoying restaurants, and seeing their parents, so why shouldn’t I? (I know why.)
This year, of course, there will be no hot dogs in bars. My family and I have decided to not gather in-person at all, let alone over our usual smorgasbord. This year instead, my parents will send me and my siblings pizza money, and we’ll enjoy our slices with each other during a virtual game night over Zoom. In a way, not making it about the food is making it more about our time together. And while I have no doubt that once we can be together in the same physical space again we will enjoy one of the most extravagant dinners we’ve ever eaten, there’s something to be said about stripping it all away and redefining our traditions.
At long last, the new year will send us back north. We’ll promise to call and, like our new year’s resolutions, forget until next December.
One season of holidays alone is worth even the possibility of more to come; but as the realities of climbing cases and a basically abandoned federal effort to manage the pandemic set in, this loneliness has turned at least in part to contempt for those flouting basic safety guidelines, and a fear that the loneliest days are still ahead.
Before I can worry too much about my culpability in this friendship, I chat briefly with a relative who always throws a kickass, huge December holiday social, the kind where there’s no real guest list and everyone brings extra people and you all end up solving the world’s problems in the wee hours of the morning while sitting on the front lawn. I ask them, what are you doing this year instead of the party? “I guess we’ll just have dinner with a few of us, you and your brothers can come over, but I’d rather have the party, I like the party.” I’m not sure if I want to come over; can we plan for a video version just in case? “Oh sure,” they sigh. “I guess. It’s just not the same.” And they’re right. It’s not really the same on video.
