Thanksgiving is this week and it’s so obvious that the holidays are going to look really different this year. My husband’s parents aren’t comfortable flying up here for the holidays, and my parents have pretty much bunkered down at their house for the next 3 weeks. My my dad stocked up at the grocery store and my mom mentioned she went to CVS and bought wine over the weekend — they’ll be fine. And I can’t imagine getting on an airplane right now — you know one of those tin cans where you’re forced to breathe the same recycled air as every other passenger for 3 hours? Yeah, no thanks.
My husband and I have hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the past 8 or 9 years — it’s completely normal for us to have 15 people crammed around my dining room table. It involves setting up a 6 foot folding table at one end of my regular dining room table (you just make sure you have two matching table cloths — no one can really tell the tables don’t match!), renting folding chairs and making sure everyone uses the restroom before they sit down to dinner because once you sit down, you’re probably not getting up for awhile!
In my house, table space is merely a suggestion — “table seats 6 comfortably” — that’s a challenge if I ever heard one! I can get 12 people around that table, they might not be comfortable, but they’ll all have an actual place to sit (with a chair!), a complete place setting and access to tons of food. They might have to ask 6 people to get up from their own places if they want to go grab something from the other room, but again that’s why you use the bathroom before dinner!
This year will be much simpler. And I’m not sure how my husband and I will like that. We like the crowd, we like the noise, the mess that comes from having a bunch of people over for a meal. And after 9 months of it being just us at home, I think we are craving other people.
So my sister-in-law, her husband and their two kids will come over on Thursday for Thanksgiving. I know that we’re supposed to only be celebrating with folks in our own household this year, but if my husband and I spend one more day just the two of us… We’ve seen his sister and her family a couple of times in the past 3 months, so maybe it’s not bending the rules too much…
This year will be simpler, that’s for sure, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still be fun. I ordered 6 Thanksgiving party hats. They arrived today:
Now that’s Thanksgiving fun! I’m sure I will be the only one who will wear a hat, but I don’t care, these suckers will make me smile! And my family better be careful — I might just make everyone pose for a photo while wearing these hats! Maybe this will be the year I do a photo Christmas card!
Notes from a Self Quarantine 