By: Mattie Rametta

Celebrating the holidays is difficult amongst the COVID pandemic. COVID has been a lonely and somewhat isolating time for many. Holidays are a time for people to connect with their family and friends. This holiday season, you should consider how you can celebrate while following the CDC guidelines and recommendations. The CDC recommends that you stray away from hosting in-person holiday events with anyone outside your household but if you do the provides some tips for keeping everyone safe.

Hosts should check the infection rate of the areas their attendees are coming from, limit the number of attendees to allow for a 6 feet distance and avoid direct physical contact like handshakes and hugs. Gather outside whenever possible and wear masks when not eating or drinking. Avoid gathering in poorly ventilated species, increase ventilation by opening doors and windows or by putting central air on and eat on a continuous circulation setting, if you get up a pop-up tent leave one side of the tent up to ensure proper ventilation and air circulation.

Encourage your guests to wash their hands. Provide and encourage your guests to bring extra supplies like masks, hand sanitizer, and tissues. Limit contact with commonly touched surfaces and shared items. Keep  commonly touched surfaces and shared items clean and disinfected, use touchless trash cans and remove bags with gloves and wash your hands after. Ask guests to avoid contact with people outside their household for 14 days before attending.

Don’t travel or participate with in person events if you have have been diagnosed with COVID and haven’t met the criteria provided by the CDC guidelines for being safe to be around others, have symptoms of COVID, waiting for COVID test results, been exposed to someone who has had COVID in the last 14 days, or you are at an increased risk of severe illness from COVID. If you aren’t traveling or attending in person events, here are some ways to celebrate without leaving your home.

• Watch holiday movies using Netflix Party or Hulu Watch Party so you can watch like The Grinch and Home for the Holidays. These streaming sites offer ways to watch movies with others and have chat features so you can discuss the film while watching.
• Prep holiday gift baskets. You can put things like hot cocoa mix and cookie mix so you can send some holiday spirit to your loved ones.
• Buy gifts online and have them wrapped by the company. Shop from small businesses that need your money especially during COVID.
• Skype or Zoom while you and your loved ones open gifts so it’s like you’re together. This will make it you feel more connected to family and friends in time where it hard to connect.

CDC Guidelines: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/holidays.html