BY KCY

Last year, my sister’s Thanksgiving sucked. You see, she was lonely in New Mexico, barely “adulting” and missing our dear grandmother Paw Paw. She was remembering the huge Thanksgivings our welcoming, beloved grandmother threw. She was envious of the family gathering she was missing out on.

This year, she won’t be alone (or at least she shouldn’t).

If you are heeding doctors’ warnings about COVID19, you won’t be sitting on that airplane to get to Aunt Margaret’s house, or trapped in the car with your four year old son asking you “are we there yet” or picking up two twenty pound turkeys to prepare for that twenty five “small” family gathering. Instead, you’ll be either alone or just with the people you live with, the people you see every day.

Kinda sucks doesn’t it.

This year, there will be no crowds lining the sidewalks of Manhattan for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. There will be no last-minute supermarket trip for those sweet potatoes you forgot to buy to make the sweet potato casserole (how could you forget that?!). There will be no cousins running through grandma’s house, playing hide and seek, no shrieks of laughter with the joy of just seeing family you haven’t seen since last Thanksgiving. There will be no warm hugs, smelling of Jane Nete.

At least, there shouldn’t.

I’ve read the news. I know that, unfortunately, not everyone is nor plans to follow the rules. On Friday and Saturday, the Transportation Security Administration screened more than 2 million flyers. More than 2 million flyers. While our hospitals are bursting at the seams, our cases are climbing and our nation has reached almost 200,000 cases in one day, traveling (and not just by airplane) and Thanksgiving plans continue. People are getting COVID19 tests to justify that a negative test means they can have that big Thanksgiving celebration dinner.

As a culture, we focus on immediate gratification, immediate pleasure. We also value our freedom to do whatever we want to do.

But this is year, we need to put aside those values. We need to put aside our wants.

Yeah, it kinda sucks that you don’t get to see your second cousin once removed. Yeah, it kinda sucks that you won’t be able to see grandma.

But, wouldn’t it suck more, if you got grandma sick? Wouldn’t it suck more if next Thanksgiving was like this again?

Yes, it would.

So, maybe we should be thinking about how much it doesn’t suck to just stay home. How you don’t have to cook that big turkey. How you don’t have wonder what the heck you’re going to do with all that turkey that no one ate. That you don’t have to sit through one hour of Aunt Dottie bragging about how successful her son, the lawyer is.

Think of all the money you will save! Whether it be money on the food or money on travel. Think about how you won’t have to clean your house!

You can sit in your pajamas all day and watch Netflix with your kids, your significant other, your roommate. You can eat whatever you want. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has never been very fond of turkey!

So, yeah, maybe it really seems like Thanksgiving without a big family gathering kinda sucks, but, honestly, it doesn’t. A shift in our perspective is all that is needed. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so afraid to create a new Thanksgiving memory. A COVID19 Thanksgiving memory. Because, I don’t know about you, but next year, I want to be in the crowd watching the parade in Manhattan.