Holiday Tradition Switch-Up: The meaning of making new traditions while COVID-19 puts a damper on holiday celebrations

Whether you hold your family traditions close at heart or you just try to survive them for your mother’s sake, holiday celebrations are going to look very different this year. 

With COVID-19 death rates climbing higher, our holiday traditions are becoming less and less possible. Christmas won’t be the same without our friends and family Christmas party or taking my little sister to see the Fairy Princess, but this year doesn’t have to be a complete bummer. 

My favorite part about holiday traditions was always learning the history of past family members who had started them, and that those traditions were carried on in their memory like heritage. We can’t travel to see family or have any big gatherings — even though a big part of Christmas is spending time with the people you love. And while that can be a downer on the holiday spirit, this should be seen as a chance to create new traditions with our friends and family. 

It’s time to build our own traditions that’ll be passed down to the next generations of our families –– our chance to remember and tell stories about the things we did for Christmas during the 2020 apocalypse. Creating new traditions with your friends and family makes the holidays more memorable.  And these unique, memorable celebrations are the ones that may hold the most meaning to us — no one remembers the Christmas that went perfectly according to plan. 

For all we know, this year’s new celebrations could be more entertaining than your normal traditions. You could try watching a Christmas movie with your friends on Zoom rather than sitting around at a Christmas party, or pulling pranks on different family members by getting creative with your family’s Elf on the Shelf.

Stop focusing on the negatives for even just five minutes to look at the possibilities in front of you. It’s Christmastime, and getting in a jolly mood means taking chances on new experiences and holiday celebrations — enjoying everything you can. 

Maybe you start doing family dance parties just because you need a reason to listen to your favorite holiday music, or maybe you raise the stakes a little and try family Christmas competitions like who can make the best gingerbread house or who has the most festive room.

The holidays don’t have to be celebrated the same way every year, and it’s okay to realize that our old traditions maybe aren’t as important as we thought they were. Let’s find something new to try rather than sitting around your house watching “The Knight Before Christmas” on Netflix and calling it a holiday. 

Maybe traveling to see your extended family all at once is overwhelming, and seeing every aunt, uncle and cousin in one Christmas dinner Zoom call is the way to go. Ditch the annual mall Santa Claus photo-op and have a parent or older sibling dress up as Santa instead. There are endless possibilities for this year’s holiday season — you just have to be open minded about it. 

My family has already started brainstorming new ways to celebrate the holidays while we’re stuck at home. This year, since we can’t have our annual in-person family music recital, my brother and I are filming ourselves playing piano or guitar to send to our family so they can still watch us perform. I hope this tradition will continue on, even when we’re in a COVID-free world again. 

If you’re sulking into the holiday, stuck in the mindset that you’ll be miserable without your White Elephant gift exchange with all your cousins – you will be. The holidays will be fun if you choose to make them enjoyable. 

While having to reinvent Christmas can be disappointing, take the chance to stay safe making new memories and traditions instead of thinking about what you’re missing from Christmases past.