Home for the holidays — or not? Many Houstonians with family in other states are wrestling with hard choices on whether they should travel long distances to see family to celebrate Thanksgiving and other winter holidays.
Visiting family comes with new risks: does a long road trip lead to sketchy hotel and gas station pit stops? How safe are airplanes and airports?
Unfortunately, there’s no magic wand solution as to how you should have your holiday fun. But health and etiquette experts have a few ideas on what to prepare for this holiday.
Deciding on what to do
For the folks who travel to get to their Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas or Kwanzaa celebrations, it might not be feasible to be there for both holidays this year.
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For one, trying to go anywhere during the pandemic is hard, particularly as many fear planes could be the perfect petri dish for spreading COVID-19. And getting together in multigenerational settings - where grandma, grandpa and all the grandkids are around the dinner table - carries increased risk.
Dr. Carl Vartian, an infectious disease specialist and chief medical officer at HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake and Mainland hospitals, said that this is not the year to attend large or out-of-state gatherings. Infection rates are different from state to state, and while Houston might be on a downward slope at that point, another location could be on the upswing.
“The more people you have, the more chances of someone being an asymptomatic carrier of the virus,” Vartian said.
Instead, celebrate close to home, said Toni Dupree, the owner of Dupree Academy, an etiquette school in Houston. If you plan to travel, pick one holiday to visit family.
“If we embrace it, we can still have a beautiful holiday season while we’re implementing safety,” she said.
Pick a location where you’ll have relative privacy, like a home with a large backyard. Agree to not come and go as you please, Baylor College of Medicine’s dean of clinical affairs, James McDeavitt, wrote in a recent blog post for the medical school. That means no destination holidays, like Cancun for Christmas.
Minimizing crowds
Don’t count on having a big party, Dupree said. But be honest from the get-go that you’re going to keep the holidays close to home this year.
“I don’t think it’s fair to ask someone, ‘well, who’s coming? How many people have you invited?’” she said. “Talk about the reason you’re asking. You can say, ‘I don’t want to disrupt your party because I’m agonizing or uncomfortable, and making your guests feel uncomfortable.’”
And it’s a bad idea to go to multiple parties, even if they’re small. Going to three parties with six people apiece is still seeing 18 people in close contact.
If you’re going to celebrate with others, you should stick to just one gathering (sorry, Friendsgivings) — and to be careful about how much time is spent indoors.
Stores are also preparing for smaller than usual parties. People are increasingly interested in buying smaller turkeys. But the meal itself is not going away, said Rebecca Welch, a senior brand manager at national turkey company Butterball. Nearly 90 percent of Americans surveyed by Butterball planned to cook homemade turkey dinners this year.
Going small turkey isn’t the only change. Doctors want families to stick to single-serve meals rather than family-style or buffet.
“If we want buffet-style meals in which you take a scoop of mashed potatoes and pass it on down, that’s a problem if we’re not changing and cleaning utensils,” Vartian said. “Instead, maybe it’s bringing your own food and getting together for the camaraderie and family atmosphere.”
Bringing the holidays to your elders
In prior years, people used to be able to bring a small party to assisted living facilities and nursing homes to celebrate with grandparents. That’s likely not going to happen, Vartian said.
Even if the nursing staff opens up the doors, it only takes one infection to get others sick.
“We like to cheer people up and maybe bring them some turkey,” Vartian said, “but it’s not the best to do with large numbers of older people because they’re so susceptible.”
Instead, you can drop off holiday cards and in some cases, fully sealed treats such as prepackaged pumpkin pies from H-E-B. Check ahead with the facility’s management to see what’s allowed this year. And pay a visit from outside your loved one’s window, if that’s allowed.
Planes, trains and cars
Many of us have not seen our far-flung parents, kids and other families in nearly a year thanks to the pandemic. (Far-flung can mean another state, or just to El Paso.)
Vartian and other infectious diseases experts recommend driving to the holiday celebration this year to avoid being in close contact with unknown vectors. Sure, you’ll have to take breaks at truck stops and stay at hotels along the way if it’s a multi-day journey. But as long as you make sure to mask up, wash your hands and stay socially distant, you should be fine. You should not travel when sick.
“A plane or an airport has more complexity in terms of potential exposures because you’ll be in an enclosed place for a while,” Vartian said.
But if you need to fly to get to your destination, there’s a helpful Houston How To guide on taking an airplane.
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Think bubbles, not baubles
In McDeavitt’s Baylor College of Medicine guide to celebrating the holidays, he recommended crafting the quarantine holiday bubble, an experiment in having a celebration via serious contact tracing and staying at home.
“Everyone planning to enter the holiday bubble must make extra effort to limit contact with other individuals to reduce risk of exposure,” McDeavitt wrote. That means opting to work from home if possible, minimizing excursions to get groceries and daily symptom and temperature monitoring.
A habit that many have picked up as part of their decisions to begin having safe outdoor gatherings again (and I will confess, this idea is tempting) is to get a rapid COVID-19 test before going to see a friend. Why not have the extra peace of mind, right?
However, Vartian thinks that that not only wastes valuable resources for folks who need a test to confirm their symptoms but might lead to false negatives, which at one point affected one in two test samples.
He thinks the chance that someone continues to go out after testing negative, and lets down their guard without masks, is too high to risk.
“You really don’t want to hurt anybody for what’s supposed to be a festive occasion,” Vartian said.
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October 23, 2020 at 04:00PM
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How do you celebrate the holidays during COVID-19? - Houston Chronicle
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