Topic: It's going to be a really weird holiday season

[Francois]

Just wanted to share something.
I'm just back from the grocery store to pick-up my weekly internet order and I saw something a bit strange: their parking lot was half empty!
I'm saying it's unusual because it's usually a very busy place. And the few people who were coming out had only one or two bags on average when usually you see people with caddies filled to the brim coming out the door.

I don't know if it's the lack of money or the fact that it's going to be a very lonely season for so many people with all the parties having been cancelled by the government as the number of daily infection cases soar over the 2000 mark.

[ManuelL]

We are taking our daughter out of kindergarden and isolate for the last two weeks before Christmas. This way we can spend Christmas with my parents and try to make it as normal as possible.
For the little children it is really a bit sad. They are not allowed to sing in kindergarden, not allowed to meet all their friends in the afternoon. The children are just trying to build their very first friendships and the situation is not making it very easy.

[Bryan]

I don't know if this is the same for other areas but here in the Pacific Northwest Christmas tree sales have been way above normal.  Many tree lots are selling out.  I even heard that some U-Cut tree farms ran out of trees, those take 6 or 7 years to grow so there may be shortages for years to come.  In Washington you can get a permit to cut a tree in the national forest, a lot of people are doing that.  It can be hard to find a nice tree though.  I guess this is a sign that people are going to be spending Christmas with their immediate family rather than traveling to be together with their extended families. 

[Francois]

I noticed the same thing about trees here.

On the radio they had a trucker who was driving Quebec trees down to Kansas... I guess this sends a big Hello to the environment...
He also said that it wasn't his first load and that once he got there he had to help unload the trailer because there wasn't enough people to do the job.


Cutting your own tree in the national forests? For some reason it gave me one of those Griswold moments 

Also, I've been calling around and we can't find any turkey (there are too many slaughterhouses that are closed). So I guess we'll have an Italian Christmas... spaghetti anyone?

[Bryan]

I noticed the same thing about trees here.

On the radio they had a trucker who was driving Quebec trees down to Kansas... I guess this sends a big Hello to the environment...
He also said that it wasn't his first load and that once he got there he had to help unload the trailer because there wasn't enough people to do the job.


Cutting your own tree in the national forests? For some reason it gave me one of those Griswold moments 

Also, I've been calling around and we can't find any turkey (there are too many slaughterhouses that are closed). So I guess we'll have an Italian Christmas... spaghetti anyone?

My wife doesn't like turkey so she wants to have Royal Red shrimp shipped from Alabama for our Christmas dinner.  Those are going to be some expensive little crustaceans.  It's one of her favorites that she discovered when she was down there a few years ago, taste like little lobsters.  We have plenty of tasty crustaceans local to us but I guess she wants something different and special. 

[John Robison]

Well, this is kind of a hermit paradise for the missus and myself. We hardly left home before the pandemic so not a tremendous change. Except life goes on....or not. Just lost an old acquaintance (not to covid) and attended his memorial on zoom. My brother in law, who is only 65, is going in for a triple bypass. Runs in his family, he doesn’t smoke and has always been active, just genetics I guess.
The bug will be, we can’t even visit. We might try Zoom though. This man and his wife saved my life when I lost my first wife to cancer. I had three little ones, ages 3 to 8 but still had to work every day to provide for the family. They already had 4 girls, aged 2 to 8 but still watched my 3 while I worked. I helped out with groceries and some expenses according to what means I had, but couldn’t do all I wished.
I do hate not being able to visit my friends, especially those with health issues.

[Francois]

I don't blame you for finding it hard.
But for me it's just going to be more of the same in a sense.
Xmas is always a boring time of the year. I don't have any family, well, I do have two uncles.... One I haven't heard from since 1992, the other never calls or comes for a visit. I have two cousins that I haven't seen since they were kids.
So filmwasters is my only family in a sense.

[Pete_R]

I don't have any family, well, I do have two uncles.... One I haven't heard from since 1992, the other never calls or comes for a visit. I have two cousins that I haven't seen since they were kids.

I think that's typical for many 'families'. I have a few cousins I haven't seen since the last funeral we all attended about two years ago - might be more (just checked, it was six years ago). I have no close family left and my wife is, ahem, incommunicado with her family. So it will be a quiet Xmas around here too.

[Sandeha Lynch]

Can never find tortellini in the shops here (tortelloni is no substitute) so it's going to be cappelletti again this year.

And cake.

[irv_b]

I don't know if this is the same for other areas but here in the Pacific Northwest Christmas tree sales have been way above normal.

I  noticed this last week when I went to get our tree.
 We always have a real tree and I always get it this weekend before xmas each year but this time there was not a lot of decent ones left, I had to drive around a fair few places before I got a presentable one at a higher price I must add.

[Francois]

That's why I put up the old synthetic one yesterday

[AJShepherd]

Certainly this year weekly pub meetings on Sunday nights have been replaced with sunday night Skype sessions, though that has let us bring in friends who are not local (or used to be local and moved away), so we'll be doing that next weekend, probably on the 17th, and having a new year's eve skype sesh.

Then there's no family to visit, so for me it's a quiet Christmas at home as per usual. But that's fine. I can slob about, eat what I like, drink what I like, watch whatever stuff I like.
(I have a BFI DVD set of the old BBC "Ghost Story for Christmas" shows which I watch between Christmas and new year. Mostly M.R. James adaptations, plus a few others. Used to be a staple of Christmas TV when I was a lad!)

I used to put up more decorations, but lately I just have one of those artificial trees with the lights already fitted. Take it out of the box, plug it in, done. I like the nice glow in the corner of the room.

I mean, as much as I'd like to have a real tree both getting one and disposing of one are a pain (you often see dead trees on the pavement until as late as March!) so I don't.