I actually drafted the bulk of this post back in November, but didn’t get around to posting it. Since then, Christmas lifting of restrictions were announced, and have since been cut back to just one day, and this morning I learned my county is moving from Tier 2 to Tier 4 on Boxing Day. So I’ve had to bring it drastically up to date!
I’d previously discussed on this blog wanting to form a support bubble with my family*, but hadn’t taken into account the fact that my mother frequently provides help to my grandmother, who has a cleaner and regularly sees other family. So that unfortunately ended that idea, as that’s too much human contact for me to feel safe.
I’m an early Christmas planner, but this year I’d spent several months trying to avoid thinking about Christmas, because the subject frankly scared me. Whatever the restrictions, I was hesitant to do what I would normally do, which is stay with my parents and brother for a couple of days. After an hour’s visit from the plumber of all things (which with my anxiety was hugely stressful and took me nearly a week to recover from), I realised I was kidding myself if I thought I’d be able to handle spending time in someone else’s house, so started thinking about what we could do instead.
Virtual Christmas
I find socialising in person very draining—it takes me quite a while to recover from Christmas just from the time spent around other people—and socialising via video call is much more intense. One of my concerns about doing a digital Christmas would be that I wouldn’t be able to cope with more than a few hours actually spent with my family, and would be alone the rest of the time. Which did not appeal.
However, I thought of a potential solution which we trialled a few weeks ago and went well! As free Zoom accounts can do one-to-one calls for an unlimited time, and that’s one device rather than one person, I had the idea of setting up a Zoom connection first thing in the morning and just putting the device aside for the day, so we could hear each as if we were in the same house. Though we spent some of the time talking virtually face-to-face, most of that time my iPad was beside me rather than in front and it made all the difference. That is our plan for tomorrow.
One silver lining this year is that we can “attend” the Christmas service run by my own church. I have never gone to one in the six years I’ve been a member, because it’s too far away from my parents’ house. But since they’re doing online services and have an online Christmas one, we’re going to all tune into that one together. We did so for the carol service as well, which is always a highlight of my Christmas!
Normally at Christmas we play at least one board game, usually Monopoly. Early into lockdown, we attempted to play Monopoly together over Facetime. I found this didn’t work very well for me; because I couldn’t see the board properly, and my concentration issues, I lost track of what properties etc I “had” (my dad was being my hands) and where I was on the board. I’m not sure virtual games will work very well for my family’s situation, so I did consider looking for other games we could play together—unfortunately as I edit this post I’ve realised I forgot! Maybe we can improvise.
All the Trimmings!
Christmas food is a big planning thing for me, as I’m on a very restrictive low protein diet*, so most foods have to be made from scratch. I’ve spent the last month or so food planning and creating: low protein “bacon”, low protein stuffing, low protein chocolate … the list goes on. (Some of the items were delegated to my mum, who’s always happy to cook things for me.) I’m trying to launch a low protein cooking blog in which I’ll be doing a more in-depth post on my Christmas food, so if you’re curious check back later and hopefully I’ll be able to add the link soon.
To everyone who’s planning to take advantage of the one-day festive bubble, please consider very, very carefully. I’d like to make a suggestion that Joanna Lumley said on Breakfast this morning. (Paraphrasing because I didn’t write it down.) Let December 25th just be a day, and when you can all get together safely, make that your Christmas Day. Although my family and I already have our plans for tomorrow, I expect that when we can all get together safely, we’ll treat it as a celebration of all the occasions we’ve not been able to do in person together.