Ok: 'Fess up.

[AlanDB]

We usually host around 12 friends & family for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Bought two 15 pound turkeys over the summer when the virus was on the decline. It was just the wife and I for Thanksgiving and it will likely be the same for Christmas. We'll be having turkey leftovers well into the new year.

I've heard it said that 2020 will be written into the history books as a four letter word. Personally, I think it will be written up as a whole string of expletives.

No turkey for me! I can't even stand the smell of it cooking. I learned to hate the damned beasts as a teen when I worked part time on a turkey farm...filthy disgusting animals.

Ok ... that is my disclaimer ... I actually wish I liked turkey as it is healthy protein, but because of my distaste for it, we never have it for holiday meals so we don't have the problem of excess leftovers during this COVID year, that is a good thing.

 

[Art Deco]

No turkey for me! I can't even stand the smell of it cooking. I learned to hate the damned beasts as a teen when I worked part time on a turkey farm...filthy disgusting animals.

Ok ... that is my disclaimer ... I actually wish I liked turkey as it is healthy protein, but because of my distaste for it, we never have it for holiday meals so we don't have the problem of excess leftovers during this COVID year, that is a good thing. C

Chickens ? Pigs? Clean animals !

 

[Luto]

An isolated island sounds cool. Do you live there or just a trip?

Live there. Most people don't last long, 2-3 years. It is too isolated and too inconvenient. Restaurants are LIMITED as is shopping for food and goods. They start out thinking it is OK, but sunset is 4:30 now and continues for about a month. I tell people you could die in fall and no one would find you until spring. Once I tripped and fell near the water. I caught myself and cut my hand for 7 stiches. I did not want to hit my head, go unconscious for about an hour because the tide was rising and would have covered me!

Interestingly you can actually ride a lot on an island. I mapped out a route that did 30 miles and, surprisingly, 2300 ft vertical. I got some more to add and can get to a loop of about 40 miles and 3000ft, which is plenty for a semi-daily ride.

 

[Art Deco]

Live there. Most people don't last long, 2-3 years. It is too isolated and too inconvenient. Restaurants are LIMITED as is shopping for food and goods. They start out thinking it is OK, but sunset is 4:30 now and continues for about a month. I tell people you could die in fall and no one would find you until spring. Once I tripped and fell near the water. I caught myself and cut my hand for 7 stiches. I did not want to hit my head, go unconscious for about an hour because the tide was rising and would have covered me!

Interestingly you can actually ride a lot on an island. I mapped out a route that did 30 miles and, surprisingly, 2300 ft vertical. I got some more to add and can get to a loop of about 40 miles and 3000ft, which is plenty for a semi-daily ride.

A lot more than my loops of about 5 or 10 miles depending. Isolation isn't always a bad thing as well.

 

[Over50]

Thanksgiving we stayed home - wife and I and the cats - no going out, no socializing. In normal years, I fly home to see my dad a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. But he lives in El Paso and you've probably seen what is going on there with overflowing morgues etc. And my wife, normally flies to see her family over Christmas but that is cancelled this year too. Her parents are at an age that it just would not be wise to expose them to anything that she might pick up in an airport. We are not dining out. Carry-out and curbside delivery only. I often use the Tern GSD to make curbside delivery runs. Limited in-store grocery shopping that I do just because I need excuses to get out on the GSD - but I'm pretty careful in the grocery store to stay far away from other customers. I always have a mask with me. Most of our groceries are delivered. Our only socializing, before temperatures dropped in the last month, was to have bicycle picnics at some local parks with friends where we safely distanced.

 

[Art Deco]

OK. There is a similar thread called "PTSD Post Turkey Stress Disorder" started earlier by the Canadians that I and some USA people posted in...
Point is ... I am really proud of all of you for staying out of the big group meals and stuff we are all so used to..

 

[Marci jo]

We didn't gather for Thanksgiving either. Some of us that were a little 'younger' thought it might be possible, but thought better if we all couldn't join in it was better to not meet at all.

People are suffering that aren't sick. It can be a lonely time of year; add the pandemic to the mix.... I lost a friend a couple weeks ago to suicide. His business suffered, his family suffered and I guess he couldn't take it. Last July a friend of a friend committed suicide after her husband died through complications from covid. And I have another friend who lost his wife after covid complications and her heart disease. My mother in law died a week and a half ago with a kidney infection.

Check on your friends and neighbors this winter. I hope everyone has a safe, healthy and peaceful holiday season.

Wow JR, those are some tough losses.
So very much hoping 2021 is a better year for you.

 

[BigNerd]

OK. There is a similar thread called "PTSD Post Turkey Stress Disorder" started earlier by the Canadians that I and some USA people posted in...
Point is ... I am really proud of all of you for staying out of the big group meals and stuff we are all so used to..

It's kind of cheating. I actually don't like this time of year where you have to gather with family who you only see once per trip around the sun. I prefer to just spend time with my immediate family.

So Covid is a good cover for my true desires. Bah humbug.

 

[Dallant]

I confess. We visited my very elderly in-law with daughters family. Had smoked turkey, and other traditional fixings. Might be the last time for him.

 

[Sierratim]

Chickens ? Pigs? Clean animals !

I'd suggest that the living conditions and ultimate processing of any modern industrialized 'farm' animal could be classified the same as the turkeys'; dirty, etc, etc. Ben Franklin proposed that the turkey be the symbol of the then new United States, not because it was dirty and disgusting, but because in the wild it is smart and resourceful. If there is any fault here it does not lie with the animal...

 

[6zfshdb]

We didn't gather for Thanksgiving either. Some of us that were a little 'younger' thought it might be possible, but thought better if we all couldn't join in it was better to not meet at all.

People are suffering that aren't sick. It can be a lonely time of year; add the pandemic to the mix.... I lost a friend a couple weeks ago to suicide. His business suffered, his family suffered and I guess he couldn't take it. Last July a friend of a friend committed suicide after her husband died through complications from covid. And I have another friend who lost his wife after covid complications and her heart disease. My mother in law died a week and a half ago with a kidney infection.

Check on your friends and neighbors this winter. I hope everyone has a safe, healthy and peaceful holiday season.

You have my sincere sympathy J.R. This suffering is a terrible thing, especially this time of year.

A similar tragic incident occurred here in our neighborhood recently. Our closest neighbor has been suffering from a cancerous brain tumor for years now. She left the hospital and went into hospice two months ago. Due to the virus, no one in her large family has been able to see her. It was heartbreaking to see the constant parade of family & friends in her front yard peeking in the window to pay their respects. She died yesterday, pretty much alone.

Sadly, as we age, these tragedies seem to occur more and more frequently. Hopefully, the new year will be easier on all of us.

 

[john peck]

No turkey for me! I can't even stand the smell of it cooking. I learned to hate the damned beasts as a teen when I worked part time on a turkey farm...filthy disgusting animals.

Ok ... that is my disclaimer ... I actually wish I liked turkey as it is healthy protein, but because of my distaste for it, we never have it for holiday meals so we don't have the problem of excess leftovers during this COVID year, that is a good thing.

I have the same problem with chicken having worked a chicken farm.

 

[Latitude]

Had Thanksgiving by ourselves here in Canada, mid October.

 

[indianajo]

Stayed home, had a turkey lunch meat sandwich. Like every day. Didn't even see the wife; we had been out shopping for anniversery present the Monday before. No kids, no responsibilities to be hospitable.

 

[PatriciaK]

We stayed (at our second) home (where we had been since late September). Had a much scaled-back dinner with our immediate family bubble (son, daughter-in-law, 2 grandkids). We were just thankful we were all in the same page with isolating from everyone else so we could be together.

 

[FoxTrot]

My wife and I traveled to Washington, DC to spend Thanksgiving with my niece. Her ex-husband had her 4 kids for the holidays and she couldn't travel due to the mayor's quarantine order...an order that the mayor exempted herself from. I cooked a turkey and did a week's worth of honey-do list items.

I can appreciate that many of you are in a vulnerable age group. I think that voluntarily quarantining if you are older or have co-morbidites is probably a good idea. I am 48 and in fair shape. I am accepting the risks associated with being alive and living a life. I may come to regret it but I am not interested in living in fear.

I have come to the conclusion that if the people who swear that we need these lock-downs and masks don't comply with their own prescriptions, it must be because they do not believe them. The list of these people is long and not confined to a single "whoops, I made a mistake and left my mask in the car". In short if they don't believe it, I don't believe it.

 

[Dallant]

My wife and I traveled to Washington, DC to spend Thanksgiving with my niece. Her ex-husband had her 4 kids for the holidays and she couldn't travel due to the mayor's quarantine order...an order that the mayor exempted herself from. I cooked a turkey and did a week's worth of honey-do list items.

I can appreciate that many of you are in a vulnerable age group. I think that voluntarily quarantining if you are older or have co-morbidites is probably a good idea. I am 48 and in fair shape. I am accepting the risks associated with being alive and living a life. I may come to regret it but I am not interested in living in fear.

I have come to the conclusion that if the people who swear that we need these lock-downs and masks don't comply with their own prescriptions, it must be because they do not believe them. The list of these people is long and not confined to a single "whoops, I made a mistake and left my mask in the car". In short if they don't believe it, I don't believe it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/coronavirus-dc-travel-maryland/2020/11/05/a52b1f10-1f67-11eb-ba21-f2f001f0554b_story.html

 

[Art Deco]

No reason to believe any of talking heads to see that even if they are as full of it as usual, the masks, social distancing, and travel bans are Better Than Nothing

 

[BarryS]

We have a big family Counting little babies there was 46 people . I have a Big Heated Pole Barn we use every-year .

 

[john peck]

We have a big family Counting little babies there was 46 people . I have a Big Heated Pole Barn we use every-year .

Except for one year when thanksgiving was a can of chow mein, I´ve been doing the turkey toil for nigh on 50 years.
This year, I have no more living relatives* or anyone else I´d care to hang out with. Wife & I got a pre-fab T-dinner delivered
in the Safeway parking lot.
*at least none whose whereabouts are known to me, (wild oats?)