Thanksgiving will be different this year. New Yorkers will not be getting up early to find a good spot for the big parade. There will be three football games, but very few will be allowed in the stadiums to see them in person. Family gatherings will most likely be nuclear as in just parents and their children gathered around the Thanksgiving dinner table, not nuclear as in extended families fighting over things that happened years ago along with the wishbone of this year’s turkey. “Black Friday” sales have started already making it a “Black November” rather than just one day of shopping for Christmas gifts.
The world changed this year, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons to be thankful. This is not to minimize the thousands of deaths in this country alone or the jobs that are on the line because of the current pandemic. This is meant to find something positive out of a horrible situation. The world has yet to find its “new normal” post-pandemic, mainly because we are still mid-pandemic and don’t really know what the world will look like on the other side. One thing we have already found is a new appreciation for family. Spending months on end with a limited number of people gave us no choice but to learn about each other on a personal level. Families worked together on projects around the home rather than each doing their own thing. Parents were no longer merely logistic planners and taxi drivers – chauffeuring children from activity to activity and having most conversations with children using the rear-view mirror. One good thing that will come out of this is stronger family bonds. Since families are staying home more, the pace of life in general has slowed. With more people working from home traffic runs more smoothly. You still can’t go the speed limit on the freeway during “rush hour” here in Reno, but you can drive faster than the crawl drivers were forced to use a year ago. Grocery stores still have the Saturday morning rush, but now the long lines at the checkout are more a factor of having fewer check stands open with limited staffing and people buying carts full in one stop a week rather than a few things each day to use the express lanes. We are learning to plan our time outside the home more efficiently and slow down the pace of life. As a teacher, I always think of how this will affect children. Staying at home more has helped youngsters develop life skills. Families are planning and completing jobs around the house together. Children and parents are preparing meals, doing yard work, and fixing decks together. Older children are helping younger children with school, play and life itself, preparing them to be better parents when the time comes. Houses are becoming homes for families to develop the next generation. With all the togetherness of sheltering in place, what can we expect the future to look like? There are things to be thankful for because of the pandemic. I see more stable families that know each other better and can solve the problems the world throws at them. I see families working as a team to navigate the waters of life. And I see a baby boom of COVID kids starting in a month or so with a real competition for the first baby born in 2021. Happy Thanksgiving!!!
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
October 2021
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