After a couple of years of tradition-busting turmoil, will your holidays be returning to “normal” this season (please see details)

I would be very happy to just be home with my husband.

For several years in a row before covid my parents came to our house for Thanksgiving (just the four of us). It became a new tradition, because my dad decided it was important to him to be together with family on Thanksgiving. Covid busted that apart, and my dad continues to be very concerned about covid.

This year we are invited to dinner with friends (another couple, just us four) which we did last year, and invited to my husband’s parents’ house and his entire nuclear family will be there. My husband chose to go to our friends’ house ten minutes away.

One of the deciding factors is that the entire country is traveling during Thanksgiving and the roads are crowded. Airports are crowded too, but none of our choices would involve air travel. I think we should go to be with his family. We can travel when it’s not extremely busy on the roads.

We will go down to see his family for Christmas. It’s important to them, especially his mom.

In my opinion it’s way easier and much less stressful to all be together when it’s not a holiday.

Unfortunately, we just got some very bad news health wise about a close relative that spends all holidays with us. Due to the nature of the illness, we will be together as much as possible, but not eating and celebrating.

2020 definitely busted our holiday traditions. But 2020 also saw two deaths in my family, not from covid, but from cancer and heart failure respectively (though covid made that whole process harder).

But starting in 2021 we not only returned to normal, I’d say we’re getting together MORE often with extended family. This is mostly because one of the folks who passed, though we loved him, was always reluctant to travel/host which reduced the number of times we got together. Without him, the rest of that family has chosen to get together more often.

Now in 2022 and going into 2023, things are about to get weird for us because my mother has decided to completely remodel her home after my father passed (he was the other person), and so she’s basically going to be living like a transient for awhile which will upend things.

My wonderful family Thanksgiving tradition went to pot 11 years ago when my marriage ended. Since then I have a new tradition of going to cousins in Bethesda for their Thanksgiving and that was pretty great until the Covid monster destroyed that. I could have gone this year but I’m not for various reasons so will be having a restaurant dinner with friends and their family. I’ve invited my brother and his family to come to me for brunch on Friday. I’m mixed about all the changes.

I am hosting Thanksgiving dinner next Thursday. My girl friend will be there, her developmentally disabled daughter will be flying in from Santa Fe NM to join us, her son will fly up from Long Beach. My son will join us from San Francisco.

I am roasting a whole turkey breast; we will have all the sides: yams, mac n cheese, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, pumpkin pie, cranberry relish, and I might even get brave and try a cranberry lemon pie

Thanksgiving and the holidays have not been “normal” for us since my mom died six years ago. We’ve been kind of scattered and lost, as a family, sometimes having holidays in restaurants. We’d always all be together at Thanksgiving, but without the house and the family around the table inside the house, it’s just not been the same.

Then when Covid came, the first year, 2020 we met in a fancy restaurant about 20 minutes from here. A gorgeous setting, but any time in a restaurant is usually “eat and leave” which was what it was. Last year, someone in my family is a member of a very exclusive private club for professionals in NYC, so we went there and stayed overnight in the rooms at the club. It was very nice, excellent Thanksgiving dinner, gorgeous venue – the building has an incredible lobby, lounges, balconies overlooking 5th Avenue, etc., but also a very strict dress code, which kind of stressed me out. Just to enter the lobby, you have to adhere to the dress code which meant some planning as we took the train to Grand Central and walked from there, so we had to be dressed comfortably enough for train travel but yet appropriately for the dress code.

This year, we are going to that club again, staying two nights in the room, arriving on Thanksgiving, which again stresses me out with the dress code, the travel down there, etc. Once we’re there and we’re walking around and having dinner, I will be enjoying myself but just the thought of it all stresses me out. I love seeing my family and since my mom died, we don’t all get together as often as we used to, and it’s not the same, so I am very happy and grateful to be seeing them but frankly,it would be way easier to just stay home and chill out.

I remember when I was working, one of my coworkers told me that her two adult children were on the other side of the country, and so for one of the holidays she was going to stay home, in her sweats, watching movies and eating fun snacks. I told her that I thought that seemed like the best holiday, especially because at the time, I was working 10 hour days with the commute and all that stuff, and so to me, just staying home and doing nothing seemed like total bliss.

So to answer the question, Covid never reallly impacted my holiday season, it was more the loss of my mom and how that impacted the whole family dynamic.

We never changed our traditions because of Covid.

Turmoil,as you call it, is kinda the norm for us in a way as far as I’m concerned. Seems like every year there is something going on that makes the holidays a little crazy. We just roll with the punches and ride it out as best we can. As long as you have family it’s all good and we love each other that is all that really matters. :)