The Whale
Like for many families, Covid interrupted our normal plans for holiday gatherings this year. We skipped the annual pierogi-making when we would spend a day at our Cousin Debi’s house making Polish pierogi for Christmas Eve dinner. She spends weeks drowning in flour, making them for family, friends and coworkers, so we pretend to be helpful and join for the day—but we probably require more help and time than she could do it expertly on her own!
In fact, there would be no family Christmas Eve dinner at all this year. We usually go to my dad’s cousin’s house and join multiple generations in a traditional feast, and recently added less-traditional jello shots. Some of us have skipped a year or two (me for gallivanting in Nicaragua or Australia), but we always come back. When I missed last year, I had no idea it would be two years before we reunited again. 2020 was the first year since my grandma started the holiday gathering that the whole family would not be together on December 31st.
I made the decision to go to my hometown to my dad’s house. We’ve all kept pretty isolated in our communities, for the most part, so it was a low-exposure risk as far as the virus was concerned. My sister, on the other hand, had to skip for the first time ever since her boyfriend is a doctor working with coronavirus patients. My uncle, too, a regular member of the household at Christmas and in the summers, decided to stay down south and avoid the travel and higher case numbers in New York.
This year was different, and didn’t feel completely like Christmas, but we made it work. My dad and stepmom put together awesome meals; we saw some snow before the rain melted it away, and we opened presents from under the Christmas tree.
Back at my other home (in LBI), I used the downtime and cold as an excuse to do three rounds of cookie baking. I gathered the few decorations that my mom left here and that I have saved from various apartments combined with the pre-lit tree my sister lent me to create a little bit of holiday spirit.
On Christmas Day, a whale washed up on the beach near where I work. Leave it to a small island town to let everyone know about a beached whale in a day by word of mouth. Of course, I had to trek out past the light house to have a look.
It’s always sad and disheartening to see any deceased animal, but I’ve never seen a whale alive or dead, so it was also cool and felt like a once or maybe twice in a lifetime opportunity to get so close. It almost didn’t look real. They’ve since buried the whale in time for the new year.
