How to Celebrate Thanksgiving Without Covid-19 Risk
Happy holidays guys! How’s your Thanksgiving going to be? According to Dr. Fauci, “It depends on where you are, our number of cases per day is higher than I want to see it. It is stuck at 40,000. There are regions of the country that are looking good but in the Midwest and the North, there has been an increase in text positivity which tends to be a predictor of when you’re going to have surges.
You have to be careful when you congregate people, especially indoors. It would be better if you hold off or have just immediate family, making sure people wear masks”
Even though we hadn’t heard from Fauci, we all knew deep inside that Thanksgiving this year was going to be so different from what we’ve known in previous years, probably the weirdest in Thanksgiving history. The Macy parade is going to be different this year. Here are some features of this year’s covid friendly parade.
- The parade will be a lot smaller
- Masks and other protective equipment will be used.
- Broadway!
- It will be shot over two days.
- Parade routes shortened
Here’s how to watch the parade according to Lifehacker
“Via the Web
If you have at least a basic cable subscription, you can watch the parade on NBC.com. Click the “live tv” option and log in with your credentials from your cable provider.
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Stream the Parade Online
If you don’t have a cable subscription, you can still catch the full program. This year Macy’s is partnering with Verizon to stream the Thanksgiving event on YouTube. You can Tune into Verizon’s YouTube channel to catch all performances and festivities live.
View the Event on Social Media
With your phone or tablet, you can tune into the parade performances on Verizon’s Twitter page @verizon. The live twitter presentation will be hosted by actor and tv journalist Mario Lopez. You can also access Verizon’s “parade portal,” giving you 360-degree views of each performance. See the Rockettes like never before—and not just because they’ll all be wearing face masks.”
Another noticeable difference is that at this time of the year, lots of people travel miles to meet with family and celebrate Thanksgiving together. 2020 is the year of change and things just don’t work the way they used to. With the second wave of Covid-19 hitting the world, travel restrictions have been put in place.
Apart from government restrictions, we all have a responsibility to keep ourselves and our family members safe. There’s no saying who’s going to go down with Covid. Even the most healthy-looking people have been affected by this disease. Some of us also have older members of our family who are at greater risk of getting Covid.
It is recommended that you celebrate Thanksgiving this year with those in your household ONLY. For those of us who do not live with family, knowing that traveling to meet them might put them at risk might cause us to choose the other option: celebrating Thanksgiving alone. But what if I say you don’t have to do that? There is a way to celebrate Thanksgiving with the same amount of togetherness and love that you have celebrated it with, every year before. Wipe your eyes! This year’s Thanksgiving will not be a lonely one for you.”
Let’s start with shopping for Thanksgiving dinner!
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How to Shop for Thanksgiving
Covid-19 has taught us that staying six feet away from others is showing them love. Stores do not allow lots of people, come into them at once and this means you might have to do your shopping alone. Thanksgiving shopping with a pack of friends is discouraged. Here are additional precautions to take to ensure you and other shoppers are safe.
Wear A Mask
And gloves too if you can. It would help because you could touch surfaces others touched before. Your mask should be close-fitting. No hanging it around your neck like a bib, or putting it over your chin like a helmet. Let it give you full coverage of your nose, mouth, and chin.
Stand Far Away From Others
You’re definitely not going to be the only one in the stores so it is wise to give others a Covid distance, which is six feet apart. You can give them more distance than that if you want. Shopping might be slow this way, in cases where you have to wait for him/her to finish buying an item before you walk any closer. But it will be worth it!
Don’t Linger
I’m sorry but you’ll have to increase your “purchasing speed”. You shouldn’t linger over a product even if it is hard for you to decide. This year’s Thanksgiving shopping will test your decision-making skills. Is the potato bruised? Is it too tall? Is the turkey nice enough? These questions would have to be answered in record time.
When you linger, you keep another person waiting and that’s not nice. Lingering is also dangerous because it increases your chances of contracting the virus.
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How to Prepare Thanksgiving Dinner Safely
Have Few People In the Kitchen
I know it is fun to have people in the kitchen, talking, helping out, and drinking wine. This year, however, Thanksgiving dinner should be prepared by fewer persons (two or three persons) depending on the size of your kitchen.
Wear Masks
Very important. This is to prevent droplets from entering the food. Everyone in the kitchen should be wearing a mask to ensure Thanksgiving dinner comes out delicious and Covid-19 free.
Clean Surfaces Often
The Covid-19 virus is friendly with surfaces. I mean your countertops, the hands of your pots, and other surfaces in the kitchen. This is why you have to wipe surfaces often. Wiping them with soap and water cleans off any droplets and keeps you and your family safe.
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Wash Your Hands Often
While in the kitchen, ensure you wash your hands often. Washing your hands at intervals means the virus does not get on the surfaces and that droplets you might have picked up get washed off before it gets in contact with your clothes or your face.
Maintain Adequate Distance
The Covid-19 regulation of standing six feet away from the next person still applies here. This would be easy to enforce if there are no more than two or three persons in the kitchen at a time.
Prepare Meals Before Time
The reduced manpower could mean some people would be doing too much work in a short time. The solution to this is preparing meals before time.
Awesome Recipes for Thanksgiving Dinner
Here are a couple of recipes for Thanksgiving Dinner!
Parmesan Potato Stacks Recipe
Ingredients
- Golden potatoes
- Butter
- Parmesan cheese
- Garlic powder
- Salt
- Thyme
- Pepper
Steps
- Slice up 9 good golden potatoes
- Add three tbsp of melted butter
- Grate 2 tbsp of parmesan cheese into it
- Add 1 top of Garlic powder
- Add salt
- Add 1 tsp of thyme
- Add pepper
- Shake the bowl to mix
- Stack in small pans and bake for one hour.
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Roasted Turkey Breast
Ingredients
- Dijon Mustard 3tbsp
- Balsamic Vinegar 2tbsp
- Dried herbs and vinegar 5tsp
- Salt 1 tbsp
- Olive oil 3tbsp
- Smoked Paprika 1 tbsp
- Black pepper
Steps
- Mix all the ingredients
- Rub generously on the turkey breast
- Bake at 35.7° for one hour
- Serve
Homemade Crescent Rolls
Ingredients
- 3-4 cups of flour
- Fresh Yeast
- Two eggs
- 3-4 cups of warm milk
- 1 ½ cups of water
- I ½ tsp of melted butter
Steps
- Put flour in a bowl
- Mix yeast with warm water
- Add your eggs
- Add milk
- Mix
- Add melted butter
- Mix
- Leave to rise for an hour
- Flatten
- Coat with butter
- Cut into small shapes
- Roll
- Bake for 20 minutes
- Serve.
How to Enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner With Your Family, the Covid-19 Friendly Way
These are a few ways you can ensure that the feeling of being together for Thanksgiving isn’t lost this year.
Share Recipes
Sharing recipes means everyone would be eating the same meal despite the distance.
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Virtual Dinners
I’m thankful for apps like zoom and Google meet because they help people connect in every way except touch. Power up your tab or PC, angle the camera just right. Enjoy your meal while being able to see and speak with your loved ones. You could even play-act, say: could you please pass the salt? That statement is guaranteed to cause laughter.
Leave Meals on Porch
An important aspect of Thanksgiving is sharing. If you’re planning to share meals with people in your neighborhood, the best thing to do is leave it on the porch. That way, the danger of passing on the virus is reduced.
BUT!!!
If you need to have people over here are some suggestions you could take that would help:
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- Have Them Bring Their Meals
If everyone brings the meals they prepared at home, it means that you won’t have to touch each other’s utensils. It also eliminates the possibility of transferring the virus through prepared food.
- Sit Six Feet Apart
You and your visitors will be safer if you obey the directive for maintaining a healthy distance. Sitting at separate small tables placed far from each other is an excellent idea. You could also consider sitting outdoors, at separate tables!
Happy holidays!
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