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Thanksgiving is my family’s holiday. I’m half Jewish, half catholic, and since my grandmother died years ago, Christmas has been a thing but not THE thing if you know what I mean.
Thanksgiving on the other hand is perfect. It was our day to drink and gather and be merry and pass out at 2pm after going heavy since 9am, only to wake up for dinner at 4. THE holiday. And all the more so now that my sister lives in Spain, this was the time we all gathered
My dad invites everyone. As a prof at Med school, a lot of people can’t go home. Most years we had 5-10 fellows, students, residents, who he learned had nowhere to go for the year. It’s big, rowdy, and always, always fun. A high holiday for a mostly secular family.
So let it not be said I don’t love this holiday. But last night, on a long call with my family, we canceled thanksgiving. Because I know what’s at stake, and how scary it is out there right now.
Guys, over the last year I’ve had 3 patients get covid. Over the last week I have been called by no less than 7. Not a perfect measure but it’s palpable that this is different.
We are instead going to do a virtual holiday. We have set up a mystery ingredient to have a cooking contest. We will also be doing some family baking. We will still listen to Alice’s Restaurant on NPR at 11am. Together, albeit distant
All in service of making sure we ALLL can be there for thanksgiving next year. It’s not that far off, just down a bumpy road, but in sight. Within a couple months I suspect as a HCW I’ll be vaccinated, and can be more free to see them.
Hopefully within a year we will all be. And we can go back to gathering like before times. But it’s a profound mistake to give up now, in what amounts to the home stretch. Deaths now are all the more tragically avoidable.
Mask up, and have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Just a different one from usual years, a distant one.
