Xmas / Holiday Season 2020

[KRonn]

I don't have the usual plans of having dinner with family and relatives. Most are staying within their own family group except that grandparents might visit  to see grand kids but keep their distance and no family dinners. We've all been talking on the phone and texting good wishes and sad that we aren't getting together. Saying we're looking forward to a return to normalcy next year.

I was going to cook something or buy a take out meal but I had cooked a big batch of chicken soup earlier in the week so I'll be having that. Going to the market tomorrow early during senior hours and will buy a ham or instead burger for meat loaf, something like that.

Hey, KRonn good to hear from you, glad you dug ourself out of the latest pile of snow, have a Merry Christmas and New Years.

Hehe, we did have a big snowstorm last week, about a foot and a half, or half a meter. But it's been warm and raining hard since last night so most snow is gone now.

Merry Christmas and a great year in the new year for you also!   Let's hope for a lot less Covid worries and return to more normalcy sooner than later in 2021.

[Pedrito]

Merry belated Christmas everyone!



L.

[KRonn]

We invited a single mom and her daughter that we're long-time friends with (and not in some act of charity - she's a Provost at the U of Alberta).  They came over on Christmas Eve and Christmas morn, we're on a pause now while kids play with toys, then we're heading to their house for Christmas dinner.  Also lots of FaceTime calls with extended family.

It's been nice.

Sounds like a nice time. A small group with someone new too. The FaceTime calls are a good and fun way to connect with family. I spent more time texting and talking on the phone with people. It's like we all make more effort to talk and connect given the times.

[Darth Wagtaros]

We made a few million cookies and dropped them off with gifts early Thursday. 

We are glad we didn't lose power.  Weird, all that snow gone in a few hours.  Now today all that rain is dried up too.  A sudden thirty degree temp drop will work wonders I guess.

[merithyn]

Hey, all. Sorry I'm late to the party. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas/Yule/Hannukah/Kwanzaa.

I spent Christmas Eve with my housemates, participating in a Wigilia Feast. It was a really delightful ritual meal. Christmas morning, I drove down to see Erik and spend the morning with him... and his ex-wife and two children. (Awkward, you say? Why yes, yes it was.) Left there around lunch time, spent the day playing cribbage, opening presents, and making pork chops for dinner. Then relaxed and hung out. I came home the next day around 5pm. It was nice. Quiet.

Oh. The obligatory "what'd you get?"

I received:

Silicone pastry mat
Silicone baking mat
Ceramic beads
Thermal underwear (welcome back to the Midwest, my girl!)
Food dehydrator
Fleece jacket
Chocolates

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWrF7ZihFk0

Times Square deserted.

[Darth Wagtaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWrF7ZihFk0

Times Square deserted.

One the bright side people were spared the self-inflicted humiliation of putting on diapers to stand in a giant crowd for 8 hours.

[Duque de Bragança]

Arc de Triomphe/Champs-Élysées area nearly empty as well, with only cops to enforce the curfew.

https://actu.orange.fr/societe/videos/couvre-feu-les-champs-elysees-desertes-pour-la-nuit-du-nouvel-an-CNT000001vYOAs.html

[DGuller]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWrF7ZihFk0

Times Square deserted.

One the bright side people were spared the self-inflicted humiliation of putting on diapers to stand in a giant crowd for 8 hours.

Is that what they really do?  I always wondered how people take care of business in that crowd.

[Darth Wagtaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWrF7ZihFk0

Times Square deserted.

One the bright side people were spared the self-inflicted humiliation of putting on diapers to stand in a giant crowd for 8 hours.

Is that what they really do?  I always wondered how people take care of business in that crowd.

As I understand it once you are in there you can't leave.  So they wear diapars and are packed in like sardines. 

[merithyn]

Arc de Triomphe/Champs-Élysées area nearly empty as well, with only cops to enforce the curfew.

https://actu.orange.fr/societe/videos/couvre-feu-les-champs-elysees-desertes-pour-la-nuit-du-nouvel-an-CNT000001vYOAs.html

No light show this year?

[Duque de Bragança]

Nope, only street Holiday season decorations.

[Syt]

Vienna's inner city is normally a party path with music stages, DJs and 500k-1M people (mostly tourists). None of that this year (and also none of the dozens of Christmas markets that normally dot the city).

[Agelastus]

Well, that's the Christmas decorations down and away for another year.

Now the only bits of evidence left that Christmas graced this house in 2020/21 are the six Turkey Tikka Masalas in the freezer...