Trick or treating is going to look very different this year.
With COVID-19 numbers spiking to never-before-seen-in-B.C. levels just days before Halloween, we can’t risk having kids traipse from home to home to get candy directly from the doorstep.
We’re seeing some solutions already – candy delivered via slides, or treat bags hanging on trees, or from the end of a hockey-stick delivery device. Groups will be small, and big parties are out – unless you want a “trick” in the form of a big fine.
We’ll have to apply the same creativity to all our holiday activities this fall and winter.
For Remembrance Day, the mass gatherings at cenotaphs have been cancelled. We can’t endanger the lives of thousands of spectators – and especially not the at-risk elderly veterans of the Second World War and Korea – with big crowds. Instead, we’ll have to settle for wearing poppies, or decorating our windows, fences, and yards with them. A quiet visit to a cenotaph around this time of year might also be in order.
Christmas isn’t that far off, either, and that one will be the toughest of these holidays for many.
It means no big family get togethers, phone and Zoom calls instead of having a dozen or more people around the living room to open presents.
We can still do some activities. The Glow Gardens-Greater Vancouver Zoo team up shows that outdoor events can be done safely, and we strongly suspect that light displays around the community will be even more elaborate than usual this year. People will be looking for somewhere to put that excess Christmas cheer.
Creativity will only get us so far, of course. There are some things we just won’t be able to do this year.
That’s when we have to remember, again, that we’re all in this together, despite the need to stay two metres apart. Solidarity and safety, in this upside down year of 2020, come from keeping our distance.
–M.C.
