A COVID-19 XMAS

by Asifa Kanji

Give your family a special gift this Christmas — stay away from them. No hugs. No rambunctious family dinners with turkey and homemade apple pie. No clinking of wine glasses. No piling onto the couch to open gifts together.

Being robbed of the best part of the holiday festivities makes me want to curl up and stay put in bed. The thought of spending Christmas alone makes me want to cry.

But wait! What if we create a new norm for this disastrous year? How do we bring joy, laughter and love into the lives of our family, friends and neighbors?

Here’s what I’m going to do: I plan to write to each of the people I normally celebrate with — something silly, or funny, or any special memory I have of them.

Dear Mary, Remember when you made the layered Jello salad for that summer potluck? I still get the giggles when I think of how the top layer flew off like a spaceship and plopped on the floor. Remember how we tried to pick up the quivering, shivering green and orange blob and put it back on top of the layers still on the plate? We were laughing so much that we ended up with scrambled Jello. Shall miss being with you this Christmas.

Dear Gramps, I’ll never forget when you used to dig up the flower beds on Halloween, and bury speakers and create mounds that looked like graves. When trick-or-treaters would walk up, your wicked voice boomed from within the mounds, “Who dares to walk up my pathway?”  The kids would run away. Thank you for the wonderful memories. PS- my friends and I never believed your hoax, but we always pretended, because we loved the trick.

To others, I will just send notes telling them why they are a gift in my life.

A Christmas ritual my husband and I have is lighting many candles for the very special people that we wish were here to celebrate with us. We say a word or three about them and light a tea-candle. Those dear folks are still the light in our lives. I will light one big-tall-fat-candle for the almost 300,000 grieving families who will be spending the holiday season with an empty chair, because they lost a dear one to COVID. This one candle, I shall keep lit all day on my mantel. It will be a way to hold them in my heart and send our good energy towards them.

This year, I’m hoping to write on a bunch of yellow stickies, what gifts I’ve received during this unique year — our beautiful new home, new friendships here at RVM, a month snorkeling in Fiji, before COVID (BC), and the gift of time to finish writing my newest book, immediately come to mind. Already I feel good. I’m easy to please!

I also hope to drop off little notes at each of my neighbor’s doorsteps, just wishing them a Happy Holiday season. For some I’ll have to write, “You don’t know me, but I now live a few doors from you. Just wanted to say Happy Xmas / Kwanza/ Hanukkah/Solstice, etc. We are all in this COVID isolation together. If you feel like having a chat, feel free to call me at extension xxxx.”

Wish you all a very special and memorable holiday.