I suspect my family's Thanksgiving plans will fall through as well but I'm compartmentalizing until the election results are announced because I don't want to spend the rest of the year crying under my desk.

We're doing Thanksgiving for two. And nothing is going to change for Christmas, honestly. Since Cincinnati hasn't had a really picturesque snowy Christmas in a while, and since we won't be seeing our families, Tim is looking at rental cabins (where "cabin" means "really nice house") in driving distance in places likely to have snow for Christmas (he REALLY wants a white Christmas). I told him if I have to deal with snow, the cabin has to have a hot tub.

Laura, I'm sorry. That's a real spot to be in. Do you have conditions that put you at high risk? (I'm thinking blood pressure, but my memory is Swiss cheese these days.) Have you talked to your doctor about whether you should attend?

I don't have any chronic conditions, other than being 66 and obese. I know well what my doctor would say. He already wants all his patients to be on a high level of caution. But this very morning one of his medical assistants I had to set up for WFH because her 16 year old son is positive. So, to put it mildly, he would not be at all pleased that I was even considering a social event with 50 people.

So, basically I can't see any way I can attend. I have worked with the other mom. Did the invites, am printing tags for the gift bags, offered to help with cost of food, have a bunch of gifts to drop off. It will further estrange me from son and DIL, but frankly that is their loss.

I'm sorry you and your son are going through this. I am glad you are taking care of yourself.

It may not feel like it, and it may never even be recognized as such, but you're doing this for your son too. If you went and got sick, the guilt of that would hit him, eventually. People don't get credit for preventing things, unfortunately.

Thanks, Cindy. I am just trying to put myself in a this too shall pass mode.

Hugs Laura. I think it's the right call but that's easy to say from outside.

but frankly that is their loss.

AMEN.

Updated in Natter, but I did officially tell the other grandma that I would not be attending so she could have her final count for the catering. She was super understanding and gracious. It is a load off my mind.

I think my personal doctor having his medical assistant having to quarantine because she and her 16 year old son are positive helped push me over the edge. My medical people can't be more careful, but they don't have complete control of the world around them. She has tested hundreds of patients for Covid, and her son is a teenager. They don't know who infected who, but he is sick and she isn't.

How many people are we going to lose for having an idiot in the White House?

It's a hard decision to make but I think the right one.

M's mom had said she wasn't going to to anyone's house anymore or so Thanksgiving like normal but she got guilty into doing the normal plans.

She was going to stop going over on Sundays but I think she will keep going over. M's brother doesn't think covid is a big deal and M's mom said "until one of them gets it bad they won't believe it's serious ".

Right now I a thinking just the two of us for Thanksgiving, possibly my MIL and SIL and nephews. We can easily eat outside.