My son has made up a new Christmas song, which involves a line from a well known Christmas song and the line “have yourself a Merry Covid Christmas” are repeated often. It’s funny but also incredibly sad at the same time. Who would have thought we would know what the word Covid was and that we would know more about corona viruses than anyone would think we needed to.
In December last year, on New Year’s Eve, in fact, I sat and watched the news coming from South East Asia about a mysterious virus that was circulating in China causing cases of severe pneumonia. I said to the husband “I hope this doesn’t get worse and cause a problem”. I had a feeling, in my gut, that something was coming, but I couldn’t pin it down. I bought hand gel and face masks “just in case” and my work colleagues teased me for being weird.
What we know now, we wish we we knew then. We sheilded, we stayed home, we worked from home, we homeschooled, we had all birthdays celebrated at home with no fanfare. We have lived with each other 24/7 for months and months.
2020 has been interesting, to say the least. We walked into a year that no one can say they thought was coming.
A pandemic, that we all kind of hoped would go away but that has now canceled Christmas for the majority of the UK and also for people around the world. Eid, Hanukkah, and Diwali for people who celebrate those have also been canceled. Important points in people’s lives have been muted or blown due to a virus that has swept the world and left a trail of devastation in it’s wake.
2020 has been like a rollercoaster you can’t get off. We are still riding it. News of vaccines that might make things better counteracted by news of new strains of this fecker of a virus (and that is as close as I get to swearing here, this is a family blog and my mother in law does read here!!) that could be spreading faster and making people sicker, schools struggling to stay open, and relationships strained over expectations versus reality and comfort levels during a time when we don’t know who has got this illeness and who hasn’t have tainted the last few weeks.
I don’t have anything to say. Christmas is going to be very hard for many this year. Not being able to see family, friends, and enjoy the usual celebrations is hard. Businesses have been hit hard by lockdowns and shutdowns. People have lost jobs, loved ones, and life isn’t what we knew it as it was this time last year.
I am siging off now, to spend some time with my family.
I hope that 2021 is a better year. We have to have hope.
Wishing you a peaceful and healthy Christmas and here’s to facing 2021.
Image by Jane Louise Photography UK.