I lost a family member this week. I did not attend the graveside service even though it was outside, which is anecdotally supposed to be lower risk than something indoors. The issue for me is I'm high risk combined with the fact it's possible someone could show and refuse to wear a mask. Even if everyone socially distanced and wore masks, I believe there's still a non-zero chance of transmission. Couldn't take the risk for myself, much less anyone else I might expose if I were to get infected.

To answer the original question I don't plan to do anything for the holidays either. Our activities will be in-home with my wife and myself only. I don't really see that changing until vaccines are ubiquitous and the local R factor is well below 1. Unless the disease is eradicated which in the face of antivaxxers seems unlikely, I don't thinks things will ever entirely return to normal.

So sad for your loss.

Hey, thanks. She just went to sleep and never woke up. If you're going to go that's the way to do it.

I'm terribly sorry.

> Unless the disease is eradicated which in the face of antivaxxers seems unlikely, I don't thinks things will ever entirely return to normal.

I think you're way overestimating antivaxxers. They make a lot of noise on the Internet and in some media but they are far from being a majority. I'm confident we will be able to eradicate this virus with vaccines, like we have (mostly) done so in the past with diseases such as polio or tetanus.

>but they are far from being a majority. I'm confident we will be able to eradicate this virus with vaccines, like we have (mostly) done so in the past with diseases such as polio or tetanus.

No of course they're not a majority, but there are enough out there that it reduces herd immunity; I'm not epidemiologist so I can't really make an argument as to how much, but it will be > 0.

Yeah polio is unfortunately a perfect example of how one community for whatever reason choosing not to vaccinate leaves a reservoir for the disease and prevents total eradication. I'd be delighted if I'm proven wrong and we manage to eradicate Covid-19. I'm just personally skeptical compliance will be high enough to do it considering the anecdotal data just watching people wear masks now, which is frankly a much lower bar.

Normally we'd fly out of town for Thanksgiving/Christmas to our respective families, but my wife and I are staying put this year. My parents are coming to us for Thanksgiving, but we are making them get tested the weekend prior, quarantine at home for a few more days, then they are driving to us only stopping for gas (so, wipe down the pump with a Clorox wipe and then use hand sanitizer after touching it).

That process alleviates enough of the fear for us.

Edit: Why the downvote? This answers OP's question, and if I'm being downvoted due to concerns around spreading a virus then by all means, please feel free to start a discussion around why this option might be unsafe. Nobody in my family has traveled yet this holiday season and I'm not trying to be cavalier about this, so any additional input is welcome.

Suggestion for gas pumps:

I carry rolls of dog poop cleanup bags. They make great temporary gloves that you can slip over your hand before touching the gas pump, and they slide off into the trash easily without touching the outside with the other hand.

Keep in mind that Clorox wipes still take 30 seconds to kill the virus (according to the manufacturer page). Most people don't tend to wait after disinfecting a surface before touching it, meaning the cleaning agent may become more diluted and less effective.

Better yet, disinfect and wear a baggie-glove while pumping. I don't disinfect the pump when wearing a plastic bag glove myself, but I do use hand sanitizer as soon as I'm done.

That's a great idea! Thanks for the tip, I'll be sure to pass it along.

Wouldn't your parents presumably be at much higher risk than you? It seems like the roles should be reversed, no?

Great question! Looking at it strictly from an age perspective you're correct, but there are a lot of other factors that flip that around for us.

My wife has a pre-existing condition and we've been taking sheltering-in-place pretty seriously since the Bay Area shut down in mid-March. We've both been working from home and have only ventured out for walks, to sit in corners of parks away from everyone, or to go to a doctor. Groceries/food get delivered (I haven't even been into a grocery store since March, which feels weird) and we haven't hung out with friends in person or anything like that.

On the flip side, both of my parents are going into work and my mother works at a nursing home (which - so far - has not had a single case of the virus), so they come into contact with far more people during the day than we do. In addition, we have an eight month old which makes us doing a day-long road trip without stopping at a hotel next to impossible.

So since our contact with others remains next to 0, and my parents are totally cool with using the extra PTO to quarantine, get tested, then quarantine a bit more before driving down, we feel comfortable with it. Obviously I'm not going to view it through rose-colored glasses and act as though there's no risk, but there's a much, much smaller risk through this route than if they were to hop on a plane and come straight over sans negative test.

Okay, interesting - good luck! (I guess it would have been reasonable for me to have assumed you two have a particular situation and I could've avoided my snarky question :) )

Hah, FWIW, I didn't interpret it as snark or anything negative. :)

I've got a turkey ordered, sugar pumpkins roasted (in preparation for pie), gonna get cranberries, potatoes & all the fixins, and stay home and have thanksgiving with my household only, no relatives, no neighbors, no friends.

I want to have a big blowout party next year this time with all my friends and family, but in order to do that, this year has to be different.

This won't be our whole lives, this is temporary. One measly holiday season, that's what we're being asked to compromise. Surely we can manage that?

Think of our grandparents in WWII (or other wars) would have said: "just cancelling get-togethers for one single Christmas? And you're complaining? Ha! How many years we had to ration foods, gasoline, rubber, keep the lights off, curfews, etc?"

I weep for our society if we lack the personal discipline and civic pride to be able to handle this relatively limited set back responsibly.

100% abstaining from any family gatherings. It's the only morally right choice right now.

I was hoping to see my immediate family (total gathering size = 7 people) for one or both of the holidays, but the infection rate skyrocketing in the past few weeks has pretty much nixed those plans.

The big extended family gathering (~40-50 people) at Christmas has already been cancelled.

Skipping the big family Thanksgiving events. Might do a small thing with my parents and sister, but that gets less appealing as the rates climb.

Flying to Florida for a wedding in December, which I'm very unhappy with. But my wife's a bridesmaid, the bride's her best friend she hasn't seen for years, and the bride cut down on guests. She's doing a webcast for most family and friends. I wish they'd just delay it.

No Christmas gatherings.

Staying the f away from elderly in-laws with high-risk health conditions (diabetes, COPD). Definitely continuing that through Christmas. They are not fans of that decision though, and guilt-trip us on every FaceTime chat.

It's absolutely insane how indifferent some older people are to the risks of covid-19. Cognitive decline is a real thing but with covid-19, it's like they have lost their minds.

Older people aren't insane, they have different priorities. Some would prefer to see their grandchildren today because they know they might drop dead of a stroke tomorrow. There is more to life than avoiding death.

Or they'd rather take a chance to see their loved ones, rather than be safe and isolated.

In a normal year, we'd do lunch with my family and dinner with my wife's family, and be stuffed beyond belief.

And in a normal year, my wife would come down with bronchitis shortly thereafter. Recently we learned that's mostly due to a congenital immune deficiency that had been undiagnosed for years.

Given that, we'll of course be sitting this year out. We may do a drive-by visit to air-hug folks from the car or something, as long as they don't try to get to close to the window unmasked (as some have done in the past).

I would really like to abstain but my family doesn't take covid seriously and would likely ostracize me. I've tried to explain that I work in a school and I'm the most likely in our group to be carrying, but that doesn't go far with them.

Now is the time to stand on your principals & do what you know is right. It may upset your family in the short term, but you'll be able to look back & know you did the right thing. Imagine you gather, you find out you had Covid and gave it to a relative who later dies of it. How will that feel? What if you are "a bit sick" and a relative dies of Covid afterward and you never know if you were the one who gave it to them?

Make the choice that lets you sleep easy at night & be able to say "even though it was hard, I did the right thing." Standing up for what's right isn't always easy.

I will stay home. I will organize a few events virtually, but that's it.

I'm afraid, quite a bit of people around me said that they will still do the same as usual. People that do care about Covid, that do talk about the risk and want to reduce the amount of propagation, but still won't make the concession of missing holidays. I'm from Quebec so it's probably that mentality that made us have more death per capita than the US.

Since incubation period is 2-14 days (with a median of 5 days), we have requested that family members attending for Thanksgiving refrain from other social gatherings for 14 days prior. While this does not eliminate risk, it should reduce it to within a margin we are comfortable with.

For Thanksgiving, we're having brunch with my wife's extended family and then dinner with my extended family.

Christmas is still being planned.

Please consider other plans. Next year you can get together with everyone at once, but in order to do that everyone needs to survive this year, and that's not guaranteed. Do your part to reduce infection–don't mingle households for spreader events!

Visiting my parents outside for Thanksgiving if the weather is ok. Everything else is going to be video chats.

Almost none of my family have followed reasonable guidelines and I've seen snapchats, etc of them eating indoor at restaurants. There is zero chance I'm going in any of their houses even with a mask on.

Fortunately my extended family and my immediate family already share a mutual distaste for each other, so I don't anticipate a problem.

Hell, I face a bigger risk coming in to work every single day because my employer insists on all hands on deck despite the pleading of my state's governor.

Fortunately I'm working from home, my parents are teachers who are working remote, and my wife's parents work night shifts cleaning a college that's pretty empty right now. Hopefully we'll be able to get together.

Definitely not traveling for any family (or otherwise) gatherings. It will be the first Christmas I haven't done this, but it's really not a difficult choice at all.

My parents live in the same city as me. I'll probably spend the day before thanksgiving in line to get a rapid swab, then bike to their place and eat some bird.

on further reflection I'm not going to their's; gonna facetime them and have some food with the people in my bubble. Just not the move right now to push the limits.

Nothing, wife, son and myself family dinner, video call the rest of the family.

Maybe Goto the park a few times for my son.

Too much empathy to risk someone's life being selfish.

we just cancelled a trip to Chicago to see my BIL for Thanksgiving. My mom and aunt both have covid ( mild case ) so West Texas is a no go as well. My sister was exposed but her and her husband tested negative. However, I think it will just be me, wife, and kids for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Pretty disappointing, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday for seeing family.

Everything going forward as usual. We will be having a few of my siblings and their families over. Some of us have already had Covid others haven't. There is a known risk but one we would gladly take to be together.

COVID is not going anywhere. It is here with us and is not a light switch to be turned off. Eventually, everyone will get it. By hiding in your closet and afraid coming out is not the solution. I live in here in Mountain west where there is a lot of skepticism about everything with COVID. Not that it's not real, but how to approach get past it. For example, I believe that flattening the curve means staying open and going on about your normal lives. As we have seen, shutting down and then reopening only seems to cause spikes again.

If you get it, you get it. It sucks. It sucks a lot worse for some than others. But so does heart disease, cancer and any number of things I could get and die from.

To live your life in constant fear is no life at all.

As the article shows, your choice to take the risk may have effects far beyond your immediate circle.

I don’t begrudge you for making the choice but wish you well and hope your family stays safe.

This approach makes sense for something that's random and not easily preventable, like lightning strikes and pancreatic cancer. It makes no sense for COVID, where there are very simple things you can do to greatly reduce the risk of spread: Namely not going to large gatherings, and wearing a little piece of cloth on your face. It's just like wearing a seatbelt. People don't wear seatbelts because they live their lives in constant fear--they wear them because they are simple, low-effort ways to greatly reduce risk of death.

> Eventually, everyone will get it.

Is there any good reason to think this? The 2009 swine flu epidemic is estimated to have infected around 20% of the world population, and that was a big one (it was also probably less deadly than COVID-19, and was met with much less resistance from lockdowns).

Holiday gatherings are cancelled for the rest of the year as far as I'm concerned.

In Denver, public and private gatherings are limited to 5 people. Statewide, gatherings limited to members from two households.

Abstaining as well. No Thanksgiving this year.

Same thing I'm doing right now, bugger all. We've already written off a large part of 2020, seems silly to throw all this isolation away for some paper party hats and a christmas tree.

I'll wait for the vaccine before I pretend everything's normal again

My family has already lost four this year. We have two more very high risk people in the family.

There will be plenty of time next year when the vaccine comes out.

I'm going to travel to see my family for Christmas. I know I'll probably get hidden, flagged, whatever for saying that. I've known lots of people who have had the virus and I'm of the opinion that these news stories are quite overblown and meant to scare people. There are lots of cases, yes, but bodies aren't piling up in the streets.

Of course not. They're piling up in mobile refrigeration units.

What about the news stories are overblown exactly? What's the motive for scaring people?

Same reasons the news media ever tries to scare people. Propaganda, softening people's opinions of some political party, moving the Overton window, etc.