Amber Davis
Illustrator

Tis the season to be social distancing?

I received an invite to a family Thanksgiving gathering several weeks ago. I immediately thought that the invitees’ Facebook account must have been hacked.

There was no way he was plan-ning the normal Thanksgiving cele-bration during a pandemic.

I was wrong, and as it turns out many of the people I know are plan-ning on attending Thanksgiving cel-brations per the norm this year. During a pandemic.

Bending the rules is not outside of my moral threshold by any means, but I am having a difficult time with the holiday season this year. Thanksgiving is one of my favor-ite days. Who doesn’t love a bomb green bean casserole? But this year it is less appealing as it may come with a side of COVID-19.

Many universities that have been meeting in person have made the executive decision to go virtual after the Thanksgiving holiday comes to an end. This seems to be a wise choice for the safety of students and faculty.

The reasoning being that the pressure to sit out on mom’s turkey this year will be too high, and the stu-dents will bring back to campus a wicked nasty COVID-19 storm.

Having a child in grade school myself, I am uneasy on the matter. Masks seem to work, but what about her lunch buddy at school? If her bud-dy’s family gathers for thanskgiving, she could put my daugther at risk.

Our numbers have already dou-bled in less than a month and are breaking records daily. What hap-pens when we all mix for the holiday and then go back to our schools and offices? Halloween may be over, but I feel a 28-days-later vibe rising.

It is irresponsible to go on with the holiday season “business as usual” this year. We are losing people every day to this disease, and to gather as if it isn’t happening is immoral.

If you would like to give thanks to what you have this year, then how about we remember why we are dis-tancing. Let’s give thanks to grandma by not sending her to an early grave.