Christmas is one of the most celebrated holidays and happiest times of the year with the Christmas parties, the ugly sweaters, eggnog, gingerbread houses, and of course good old Santa Claus. But there is just one small twist to some of those normal Christmas activities, and that is that we are in a pandemic at the moment, and it is impossible to hold large gatherings without anyone getting COVID-19. 

That means most holiday traditions are postponed and moved to 2021 when we can celebrate freely without risk. We were able to speak to a few students at Morgan about what they are doing to keep the holiday spirit alive.

Ryan Baker does a good job of staying socially distant from others. This year for Christmas he will not be seeing any extended family members: “I’m going to have a minimal amount of family over, probably just my grandma and my aunt and uncle”.

Cole Hornyak will be spending his holiday season at home relaxing and watching football every Sunday. He’s not going to be seeing any friends or extended family at this time. Although Cole and his family tried to keep the spirit alive, Cole says, “It’s not the same.”

Tyler Greenhouse, like most others, will be spending Christmas at home with his family. He will not be seeing any of his extended family or friends this year. He has tried to maintain the holiday spirit by giving back to the community. He said, “I think that is the true meaning.”

Caley Ayer is going to be spending her Christmas at home with her family. She is going to be able to see her extended family that lives here locally. She has been able to keep the holiday spirit alive through social media and being able to go to festive places.

Kristen Amendola is spending time with her close family. She will not be seeing any extended family or friends. She has been able to keep her Christmas spirit by decorating. She put a Christmas tree in her room and decorated her house. She said, it  “looks cute, very festive”.

Camryn Coffey’s family is going to come and visit. They will spend Christmas together. To keep her spirits up, she has been listening to Christmas music and building gingerbread houses with her family.

Now you know what the students’ plans are. It’s also not a coincidence that everyone’s response was the same. It makes sense why the students won’t go anywhere far from home and that they would rather just stay home. Because of the pandemic, there may be a lot of virtual calls and other activities that are virtual.

Even though there are more and more vaccines coming into the world, it doesn’t mean that all countries are celebrating Christmas. In the United Kingdom, for example, they are planning to cancel Christmas because of the rising number of cases in the U.K. and a new strain of COVID-19 that is spreading more rapidly especially in the southeast most part of the U.K. where London is.

It’s sad for most of the people in the U.K. to hear this news. But that means everyone will just be safer because there won’t be as much travel as there was on a normal Christmas. Even though people can’t celebrate the holidays like you could in the past, they were still able to celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving despite the restrictions.