Are you looking to celebrate Thanksgiving as safely as possible this year? Me too!
Personally, I love Thanksgiving. It’s a top 3 holiday for me and I do not want my kids to miss out on anything else in this shitshow of a year. Of course, I also don’t want anyone to get Covid!
This article gives my personal suggestions to make Thanksgiving as safe but as normal as possible this year.
While this may be obvious, I want to explicitly state that I am not a doctor or infectious disease expert of any kind. I’m simply a mom who wants her young children to have a special Thanksgiving.
It is up to YOU to decide your level of comfortability with any activities this year. You know what is best for your family. There is inherent risk in anything we do, so it’s up to you to make the best informed decisions for your circumstances.
I hope you find these ideas useful!
This post is all about Covid Thanksgiving:
How to Celebrate Safely in 2020
(This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a small commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you).
Have A Designated “Drop” Area
What I mean by this is to have an area right by your front door (or wherever guests are coming into with a specific and obvious place for them to take their shoes off, hang their coats, stash their purses, etc.) I’d also put a bottle of hand sanitizer there too.
A lot of times, people use their beds as coat storage or let their guests wear shoes in their home, especially if you tend to dress up a little for Thanksgiving dinner.
But, it makes sense this year to have coats hung on a rack, shoes left out front, and purses stashed out of the way. (Did you know that the bottom of purses have more germs than a toilet seat? You DO NOT want someone slinging their bag up on your food prep area!)
And lets not forget that we are taught to sneeze and cough into our elbows. You don’t want Uncle Ned’s jacket with his sneeze germs laying on your bedroom comforter!
READER SUGGESTION: Use plastic bins to keep items separated from other guests.
Tip: Make the drop area cute and festive with a mum, pumpkin, or fall floral arrangement on a little table and put the hand sanitizer in a cute pump dispenser. Get a fall welcome mat.
Here are some things that can help you accomplish the drop area:
Go Disposable
While you may be tempted to use your fancy dinnerware for your Thanksgiving meal, it may be best to save it for next year. The less touching of other people’s forks/spoons/etc, the better. And forgo the cloth napkins as well.
I know, this isn’t the best things for the environment but it will save you TONS of time cleaning up. So even though you are producing more trash, at least you are saving water!
Tip: Don’t forget about the non-dining area. There is nothing grosser than using the same hand towel as someone else after they used the bathroom. They barely rinsed their hands for all we know! Get disposable hand towels for the powder room and have extra tissues and paper towels handy. (I actually recommend this all year round.)
Here are some pretty disposable things to try:
Have Masks Available
If this is something you’d like to ask of your guests, make is festive with fall themed masks.
Tip: Just be sure to order them with plenty of time to ship. Many of the turkey masks are not Prime.
Here are some cute ones you can get online:
Utilize More Seating Options
While its customary for everyone to gather around one big table for Thanksgiving dinner, it could be smart to have a few eating spaces available so that you aren’t elbow to elbow this year.
You can do this with tray tables or some card tables. Just cover them in a cute table cloth and you are good to go!
Here are some pieces to utilize:
Crack The Doors And Windows Or Eat Outside
If you live in a warm enough climate, consider eating outside! It could actually be really fun. Get a tent and some string lights and it would be sooo pretty! You could use a small fireplace for warmth and smore’s too!
If you live in a colder climate, you could probably at least crack some doors and windows for fresh air circulation.
Use These For Some Outdoor Dining Ambience:
If All Else Fails, Have A Zoom Thanksgiving
Maybe you just can’t have a family Thanksgiving in person. It could be because of travel restrictions, a recent exposure or diagnosis, or simply, preferring to be on the safe side.
If this is the case for you, you can still “see” your family and eat together, it will just require some screens. You could stream your video call to a larger screen TV that you can see from your own dinner table. Open concept living space pays off!
If you have the time, you could even deliver a Thanksgiving-to-go meal to your elderly family members that live nearby but can’t attend in person.
This post was all about Covid Thanksgiving:
How to Celebrate Safely in 2020
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