If you normally host your large family for holidays

just enjoy a small, intimate holiday with your immediate family. Come up with some new traditions just for you. Hot chocolate and a classic Christmas movie, sitting together in front of a crackling fire, etc.

we don't have kids, and our families are across the country- we typically can't get together with our family at Christmastime due to weather / travel / work conflicts. It's really not that bad. Just embrace the 'privacy' and 'intimate' factors of it.

We usually have a big family Thanksgiving with DH's siblings and extended family. This year everyone is staying home. We are going to visit as a group via Zoom on Thanksgiving.

Stay home and celebrate with the people who live in your house?!

Make a dinner. Play a board game. Pick up a new Switch game. Build a puzzle. Drive around and look at decorated houses at night. Sing carols at your doorstep for neighbors to hear. Watch a movie.

We usually host about 35 people at our house for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

For Thanksgiving I'm going to roast game hens and drop off dinners for my MIL and FIL.

Then, my sister (who lives alone and is the only person in our bubble) and her dogs will come over and eat with me at opposite ends of our big dining room table. If my husband is not deployed somewhere, I will feed him too. Everyone else is on their own this year.

Those are my big plans. Not exciting, but necessary.

ETA: Last Thanksgiving, we had a larger than usual gathering, with several out of state guests. I had the inspiration to post a big sheet of butcher paper on a door and we measured everyone and wrote names and dates in one color of marker. I had planned to put it up again this year and have everyone use a different color, though really, only the kids would have grown taller. I'm hoping that this year's non-gathering means that no one will be missing next year.

My parents usually host my kids and my brother and his wife. The kids (college students) usually spend the weekend, cutting a 15’ tree at a farm and going to a local truck stop for lunch. I suggested that they skip the dinner or eat in the garage, which is heated and 3 stalls. Then go on Friday and get the tree together, with each households driving separately. And to not include DD, as there are just too many cases on her campus.

We usually have lots of out of town guests for the entire Thanksgiving weekend, with lots of family parties and traditions. This year it will just be three of us. I'm planning to have a great dinner and a Harry Potter movie marathon. We'll have a wonderful and quiet time. Christmas is usually just our family, but DD won't be here this year (she lives in Atlanta). Again, we'll have a great day and enjoy the heck out of the three of us.

We'll be back next year. This year is for quiet and intimate celebration. I'm refusing to even entertain the thought that it won't be as good -- it will be what I make it.

We just have my parents over usually...but this year they're doing their own thing and we're doing our own thing. For Christmas, we'll exchange gifts in advance and then open them over zoom.

I'm looking forward to spending both Thanksgiving and Christmas relaxing in my jammies. I ordered T-day dinner from Cracker Barrel and will probably do something easy or takeout for Christmas.

Still TBD. We usually just have dh's parents and brother/sil/kids over for Thanksgiving day, it's likely that will be limited to just a quick dinner with his parents. My family is the tricky part. If we're all together (which we usually are) there's 28 of us crammed into my parents' house. I'm just not comfortable with that. I know I'll get a guilt trip if we skip it, I declined an invite to my niece's birthday party for this weekend (even said we're avoiding unnecessary group events) and got radio silence on the group text

We're going to have a zoom turkey carving. My parents, who I assume will be with my brother and his family (they live near each other and have been seeing each other throughout the pandemic, sigh) and my little fam will do a virtual turkey carving over zoom or facetime. Then we'll eat "together" for a bit. I'm also hoping that later in the day we can play Among Us or another online game, like Ellen D's Psych or Jackbox, while Zooming so we can chat.

papersilly maybe something like that could be an alternative for you? Because I agree: we aren't getting together in person, but that doesn't mean we can't try a different, virtual, tradition this year for all remaining 2020 holidays. (Cuz Lord knows that unless Fauci himself shows up to my house and gives the all-clear, we're hunkered down through New Year's Eve.)

We don’t usually get together with family for holidays, mine is on the east coast, I normally see them in June, but not this year. Dh family is in Utah, we see a few of them occasionally, but again, not this year.

Our big annual get together is when our friends and their kids come out here to Arkansas from California for a week in November to deer hunt, usually around 8 of them. We cancelled this year due to COVID. Everyone understood, but we were all sad about it. We will celebrate the holidays this year in our usual way with our Ds and his Gf, they live down the road. We’ll be a party of four.

thanksgiving is no big deal for us.  we just had cousins whose family contracted covid last summer.  one of her brothers came to town with his family and one of the kids had covid. they didn't know it at the time and many family members got sick from that one visit.  they recovered but it was a tough time for them.  i don't know if we would fare as well. we are a family of preexisting conditions.

in the grand scheme of things, thanksgiving is no big deal. christmas is another thing but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.  

 

We usually travel to my in-laws' house in another state and stay there for several days. That's not happening this year of course. It is older DD's turn to have Thanksgiving with her DH's family so it will just be younger DD, DH and I for Thanksgiving. DD is a vegetarian so I don't think I'm going to do a big turkey for DH and I - maybe just a turkey breast. We've already talked about how we'll make the holiday special. We'll watch the Macy's parade (such as it is this year) and then the dog show. We usually spend the weekend doing a big puzzle at my in-laws so we're going to do a big puzzle at home. We'll still have our special holiday foods and pies for dessert. On Thanksgiving night we'll watch our first Christmas movie of the season. Friday after Thanksgiving we'll put up the Christmas tree and decorate for Christmas. That's as far as we've gotten in our plans. We'll probably throw in more holiday movies and some game playing and some on-line gift-idea-gathering. If the weather is decent we'll probably go on a hike or at least a walk.

In-laws usually come to our house and stay for a week at Christmas. Again, not happening this year. To be honest, I'm looking forward to enjoying the holiday this year and not having to host, cook for and entertain house guests! We haven't quite figured out the details there yet but for sure we'll have our special holiday foods, I'll do holiday baking and candy-making and share with family. We'll probably do another puzzle at our house and play games - try to observe the traditional things we normally do but in a slightly different, socially-distanced way.

I normally host Thanksgiving for my side of the family and have 20 - 30 guests. This year I am not hosting -- DH & I will have Thanksgiving at home, just the two of us + our dog.

I thought about having a small dinner (less than 8 guests) but that's still too risky and complicated and may result in some hurt feelings. So it's best for us not to have anyone over.

We are only having it with our household this year. Both holidays. We are in quarantine through Thanksgiving, and after what we are going through now, there is no way we are putting us or our relatives in danger.