A Covid Christmas

It’s December – Christmas is around the corner and hell bent to make an appearance, pandemic be damned. Covid might have locked us up but the jolly holly will not be denied.

The world feels different this year, indifferent. I am indifferent too. My Christmas decorations are still stashed in the crawl space beneath my daughter’s house, I fear my spirit might be down there as well. I purchased a poinsettia last week, plunked it in the centre of my dining room table and called it a wrap. No one cares, no one has crossed my threshold in weeks.

There are no Christmas concerts or recitals this year, I haven’t noticed a single carol floating on the air as I select produce and baking supplies at the grocery store. Nor have I noticed an abundance of holiday cheer on the masked faces of other festive foragers – us Covid Christmas shoppers are a serious bunch.

Grocery stores have morphed into the co-ops of the days of yore, you can buy anything from gum boots to grapes – just step out of the produce section and you are presented with a smorgasbord of sundry. If a person can’t find the perfect gift somewhere in the aisles and aisles of plastic perfection they need only shop online and track their item as it makes its way across the country to be dropped on their front porch in no time flat. Slam, dam, thank you mam – Covid Christmas in a cardboard box.

I’m a Scrooge and I’ve just confirmed my Scrooge-dom by putting into words that which is furrowing my brow this Christmas. But even as I Scrooge around part of me is acutely aware of the gifts that continue to surround me. My family is healthy, warm and fed. I am blessed with a sense of connection even in this time of disconnect. Christmas is coming even if the patter of its footsteps is muffled – it’s making its way despite the virus, despite my reluctance to anticipate it. Christmas is on the way.

Celebrating the holidays will be different this year but even in the difference many things will remain the same. Stockings will still be hung, Santa will still sneak into the house in the middle of the night and fill them. Christmas dinner will be served even though the table will have to become tables and the turkey turkeys. Christmas Day will still be steeped in tradition and although we are physically apart we will be together in spirit. The ghosts of Christmases past will mingle with the ghosts of future Christmases and make this Covid Christmas one we will never forget.