The holidays are coming and spoiler alert: they are going to look a lot different this year, at least here in Pasadena, thanks to the pandemic.

For Thanksgiving, we are changing things up. Our gathering will be much smaller than usual. Instead of having full access to my parents’ kitchen, I’ll do all my cooking and baking at home, mostly the day before. Instead of eating at 5ish, we will eat outdoors at 1ish. Instead of making the turkey, my parents are ordering a bird from Honey Baked Ham.

And this is the just the current plan!

After I recorded this episode, I learned that Los Angeles County might go into another lockdown on Sunday. Fun times! I don’t know what that means for Thanksgiving. When I learned about the next potential lockdown (I am forcing myself to say “potential” although it feels “imminent”), I felt a ton of panic. Will there be another run on the grocery stores? Will I be able to get the ingredients I need for sweet potato casserole? But after the initial panic, I remembered Thanksgiving is a celebration of gratitude and if we can’t get turkey, we can be grateful for pizza.

The turkey is never even that exciting.

Though the prospect of another shutdown right before Thanksgiving still suuuuucks sooooo muuuuuuch.

Going forward, I am going to try to enjoy the 2020 holiday season as much as possible. With that in mind, these are a few principles I’m trying to follow (though I will surely forget and have to hit my personal reboot button again and again and again):

– Allow my feelings without wallowing in the negative ones.

– Embrace the adventure while mourning the losses. I already know that we won’t be celebrating Christmas Eve with my extended family. I am going to miss my Aunt Berta’s lasagna! And my family! So much! But we will figure out ways to be joyful without the lasagna. (The lasagna is the stuff of family legend.)

– Keep meditating, journaling, exercising and doing as many of the things that boost my mental health. These days, my mental health needs all the help it can get.

– If social media starts to feel like too much, I’ll take a social media fast for as long as I want. I’m pretty sure Instagram will survive without me!

On the bright side, shutdown or no shutdown, whatever happens with Thanksgiving, THERE IS NO SCHOOL NEXT WEEK. That means: A WHOLE WEEK VACATION FROM DISTANCE LEARNING! FUCK YEAH! That alone is cause for celebration.