Thanksgiving | What is your plan?

I will be in my own bubble. I'm having dental surgery next week and will be on a soft food diet so won't be able to eat any of the goodies anyways. And, since I'm having surgery, I want to stay away from people while I'm healing. And, the state of Ohio is having a horrible explosion of cases right now with my county being one of the worst. The governor is doing a statewide address to discuss what is happening in the state. Big question is will there be any sort of lockdowns that could impact the holiday.

 

Well, I've been living with the situation of having no teeth at all for over 2 years. Dentures have not worked out for me so this is the beginning of the "end" and if all goes as planned, I will be able to eat normally by next summer.

 

@HavaDrPepper Good luck on the surgery, but yay to be "eat normally" by next Summer! woot woot!

If you are hosting I don't see how it should be overstepping to ask people to get tested.

We are going to a hockey tournament, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So we will travel on Thanksgiving and have nowhere to eat!

 

There's just six of us - Dh and me, son and daughter-in-law, daughter and son-in-law. Everyone with a job is working from home. We're gathering here at our house the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We have a huge family room that has a table & chairs. I have 2 card tables & chairs also. Each couple will have their own table to eat at. If the kids decide to do any games, they can mask up, sanitize their hands, and use the big table upstairs.

 

I don't think you are overstepping at all!
It's usually just us at Thanksgiving and I make grazing food so when the kids have a break from going everywhere else they need to go, they can stop by here.

 

I hope your surgery goes well. I've had my share of dental surgeries/problems so I'll be sending special healing vibes to you.

 

We're planning on having Thanksgiving dinner at our house. We don't have much room, but DH is cooking, so he got to call where we're eating. It will just be our oldest DD, SIL, and one of the grands. Not sure if SIL's brother and his wife are coming or not. Braden and Alyssa are flying back to Florida to be the other side of the family. Our typical holiday. Nobody else can afford the price-gouged Thanksgiving airline prices.

 

Cases are going up here so they're asking that we don't mix households, but we are in the middle of a major kitchen, laundry, bathroom remodel so I won't have a way to cook or host Thanksgiving this year and we're hoping that someone in my husband's family will invite us to eat with them. Otherwise, we'll have to get it catered or skip it until the kitchen gets finished. They started the cabinet install today, but the countertops are 2-3 weeks out after they can come template them. Plus my appliances are still not here... DARN covid! I've been cooking in the instant pot and crockpot in a makeshift kitchen in the basement.

 

Normally my sister family comes to our house for the weekend and then my parents come over (they live 8 miles away) on Saturday to eat and hang out. This year, my parents aren't going anywhere because they have lots of health issues and are worried about covid. Then my county is exploding with cases right now and so is my sister's.... so we aren't doing anything at all. It stinks. To make it still be fun, my hubby suggested we do something a little fancier and have surf and turf (steak and lobster). Now I'm excited for that part... but I sure will miss seeing my sister and her family.

My MIL had surgery the day after the election, so she stayed with us at first and then my SIL and her son came to stay with her for a few days. We were supposed to do a thanksgiving meal with them last weekend, but then my youngest son got contact traced from a kid at school, so that was canceled too. We ended up just making the turkey and eating just the four of us and it was actually really nice.

Anyway, to answer your question, I don't think you're overstepping to ask people to get tested. I guess it'll just be up to everyone coming whether they feel it's necessary and some might just not do it. So you'll just have to decide if you're okay with that. Around here it's taking so long to get results back that it would be hard to figure out how far in advance to even get tested to be sure to have results in time for a gathering. Blargh!

 

Nope - not overstepping - this is the way things are right now. If they don't like it then they don't have to come. Sad but true - but it is for EVERYONE.

We have a coach SIL and with Covid, they started football season late so we are traveling to his house so he can go to football practice early on Thanksgiving. Thankfully, the other SIL was able to get his schedule switched around so we will will all travel 4-5 hours for our turkey. With a nurse, pharmacist, and two high school teachers, it will be a miracle if no one brings Covid, but I'm not giving up my kids and grandkids. We just try to be careful.
My son in CA. will come home the week before Christmas so he won't be with us on Thanksgiving.

But I guess we need to pray for a Covid let-up for the holidays.

 

It's your home. Do what you feel most comfortable with.

We'll be having Thanksgiving at my moms as normal (3 families together). We all live in the same town and see each other regularly. The covid numbers in our county are all staying pretty low.

 

Besides one friend whom I've seen outside 3 or 4 times since March, the only people I'm spending time with are my parents, my sister, my BIL, and my nephew. They are the only people we spend holidays with, too, so our Thanksgiving (and every celebration we've had since March) will be the same as it always is. We'll have lunch together and then go back to our own houses.

My parents are retired, my sister and BIL and I are all working from home, and my kids are virtually schooling so we are all as safe as we can be. My aunt, who is also local, may attend and she does work outside the home but she works nights in a school (so there's no one else there when she's working) and lives alone so I feel like she's pretty safe, too. The only "wild card" is my nephew who is attending school in-person + goes to visit his father some weekends and his biological mother other weekends but I obviously don't have control over that and just have to pray/hope for the best.

 

We are staying home and having just the three of us. Utah (immediate family) is horrible right now, and DH can't afford to be off work for two weeks if he was contact traced. Since he's an rn, we tend to weigh the community benefit/cost of having him out for two weeks differently than our friends and family.
When we have visited family this year, we always assume the risk of the worst outbreak place that everyone is from. Idk if that makes sense, and I'm not sure how to explain better?
Anyway. I have cousins and family close by, but the nature of their jobs, our current spread/hospital fullness, and some ages makes us uncomfortable meeting up with them this year.
I don't think you are wrong to ask people to be tested. But I think you should decide how to handle it if they refuse. Or if they don't get results back in time. Would that change your plans?

 

I don't think you're out of line asking everyone to be tested, especially after seeing this graph today (it lets you put in your gathering size and the calculates the likelihood of someone being COVID positive at your gathering). My kids will both test before leaving campus, but their schools constantly remind us that the test is just a snapshot of that particular time, so to continue to use other precautions as they may have been exposed prior to the test but not positive yet or could have been exposed after the test.

Our Thanksgiving will be small this year. Just the four of us. Both kids are coming home as their in-person classes end that week. They are both coming from hot spot states that will carry quarantine restrictions once they're in Chicago... so it really can only be just the four of us. I'm a little concerned about the exposure coming from my kids, but my son is in an off campus apartment and has a pretty tight bubble of friends he's been with since March. My daughter is more of a wildcard as she's in the dorms. She's being super cautious, but it's still not perfect given how closely she lives with other people (thankfully she lives on the nursing floor and they're all pretty cautious). I texted the kids last night if they wanted the traditional turkey dinner or something else and they've been busy texting back and forth about what they would like to make. We're just going to make the most of it and enjoy our laid back time together this Thanksgiving!

 

I'm skipping the extended family gatherings for T'giving and Christmas this year and staying home with my DD and her three children. The older two no longer live here, but they visit often and are part of our bubble. Pretty sure I ticked my sister off when I told her I wasn't coming, but she'll either get over it or not.

She leans towards the "COVID isn't that bad", while I'm of the "better safe than sorry" mindset esp. since I work with our 92 y.o. father. Dad has said he's not going either. I did invite him to pop in and eat with us, but he decided he'd just rather me bring him a plate.

Rene, I hope your surgery goes well and your recovery is uneventful.

 

@jk703 I've been doing a lot of reading about how to do the holidays as safely as possible since we're going to try to see my parents and my in-laws at Christmas (my mother is a special high risk on top of her age). And so many sites reference air flow as key. I read one article about how to utilize your garage to hold your gathering as with the door up, it would allow for a lot of air exchange while still being protected. So just increasing air flow in the space you're in could help lower the risk as well. I found the info below on the University of Chicago Medical site and it has some good tips...

Q: What precautions do I need to take if I’m hosting an in-person holiday celebration?

A: If you’re going to be together without masks or social distance — and everyone hasn’t quarantined and limited their travel beforehand — then you’re putting everyone at risk. If you’re not sure your brother is really going to quarantine the way he says he’s going to, you can take some additional precautions: Have really good ventilation and air flow in the house and spend time in the largest room you can as opposed to smaller, confined spaces. Crank up the heat, open the windows and put the best filter you can in your HVAC system. An even better option is to socialize and eat a holiday meal outside. Whether you’re inside or out, keep people as far apart as possible and do that as much possible. Wear masks whenever you can. Make sure everyone washes their hands before they eat and have some hand sanitizer at the table if you’re using shared serving utensils or holding hands for prayer. Most of all, remember: If you really want to be protecting Grandma, the best choice may be not inviting her at all.