Use the Pandemic as an Excuse to Cancel Holiday Plans

You could just stay home, ma’am.

Photo: Da Antipina (Shutterstock)

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Some of us love traveling or spending time with family, friends, and co-workers during the holidays. Some us do not. For those of us in the latter category, I have great news: you have the perfect built-in excuse to opt out of any and all holiday plans you do not wish to attend. (In case you don’t know which excuse I am speaking of: it’s the pandemic we currently find ourselves in.)

For starters, it’s more than just an “excuse.” It’s a good idea to minimize gatherings of any kind, and opting out of dinners and parties—even the socially-distanced kind—is always the safest, lowest-risk option.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy declining all sorts of invitations this holiday season. This year we have an iron-clad reason to avoid taking planes, trains, and automobiles to people you may not want to spend much time with anyway, like extended family who don’t believe in mask-wearing, or relatives with unsavory political leanings.

On a smaller scale, you can avoid your boss’s holiday party, your neighbor’s cookie decorating party, or any other party you might usually have to wiggle your way out of.

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“Oh, people won’t even have parties this year,” you might be thinking. This is incorrect. If I’ve learned anything from these last seven months, it’s that people who love parties will find a way to have them, but the socially-distanced, heat lamp-renting, outdoor party-throwers cannot compete with a simple “Sorry, I simply do not feel comfortable going to any sort of social gathering right now,” because even the most zealous party people know that it is deeply inappropriate to try and shame anyone into gathering right now (or at least I hope they do).

I like being around people, so I actually predict that this holiday season will be a little rough for me. (The only thing I miss about working in an office is the office holiday party.) But I can mourn the absence of fun holiday gatherings while appreciating this very small silver lining that allows me to politely decline invitations to things I didn’t want to do anyway, and I encourage you to do the same. COVID is terrible. This pandemic is terrible. But at least it lets one avoid hearing any and all bourbon-fueled ramblings you might usually have to sit through while eating turkey.

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