Thanksgiving during Covid-19

by Meghan Dundon

Covid-19 has made people start thinking about what to do for holidays and gatherings to keep everyone safe, myself included. Since March, I’ve had to unexpectedly move from Sandwich to Eastham in order to keep me and my family safe. Since I work in retail and my family has the option to work from home, that means this year will be the first year I cannot spend Thanksgiving with my family. What was once an “it’ll be over in a few weeks” mini vacation, has now turned into a yearlong isolation from family and friends.

For me to keep my family, as well as keep my boyfriend’s family safe, we had to separate the house into two sections. Since we need to work with the public and cannot work from home, my boyfriend and I live on the second floor of the house, while his family lives on the first. We are further separated by a tarp that has been taped up at the base of the stairs, the only way to the second floor. We get groceries from them delivered to a small chair in front of our door and anything they need from the second floor needs to be quarantined in the garage for at least two days before they can take it inside. I like to call it our apartment trial period before we move out of both our parent’s houses.

This Thanksgiving, I can’t sit at the dinner table with the rest of his family or my own because of the pandemic. The plan so far is to have the food my boyfriend’s family makes delivered on a small folding chair for us to collect and eat in our make-shift kitchenette. If the weather is sunny and warm, we will eat dinner outside together. Either way, it will be very different from the traditional family dinner setting I’m used to. However, this minor inconvenience is a small price to pay if it means my boyfriend and I keep our loved ones safe and healthy this holiday season.

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