How COVID Forced Us To Do Christmas Different

The Christmas of 2020 certainly will go down as the oddest one in my lifetime. Or at least I hope there will never be another one like it. And I imagine the same goes for you and your family.

Aside from all the craziness 2020 has brought us, I spent a good portion of December dealing with the coronavirus. And that meant my wife, who tested negative thank goodness, had to quarantine for two weeks.

And because of all that unpleasantness, we were not allowed to leave the house, so we decided to forgo any gift exchange for Christmas. As much as I am not a fan of shopping, it really felt weird not buying any presents for her. We did decide that come January when things go on sale, we will each get ourselves something, so it's not all a loss.

On Christmas Day, we usually start with opening presents for our dogs and ourselves, followed by breakfast and gift exchanges at her sister's home. Then, we would rush home, let the dogs out to do their business and head to western New York to visit my mom and siblings. Well, not this year thanks to Covid-19.

So, on Christmas Eve, after both of us were out of quarantine, we headed over to my wife's sister's home, where she had her garage door open so we could drop off her presents and pick up our presents. It was so weird.

On Christmas Day, we connected with my sister-in-law on Zoom and we each took turns opening our presents. It was a strange situation, but at the same time, worked out just fine. We stayed connected for almost two hours.

I then called my mom and talked about how strange this Christmas turned out, followed by texts to all my siblings. My wife commented that while the day was one for the books, she stated that the day was not hectic as it usually is with all the driving we do on Christmas.

She better not get used to it, because it will be hectic again Christmas 2021. Or as least I hope it will be.