Virtual Thanksgiving and Staying Connected During the Holiday Season
Words by Ruth Martinez
Graphic by Aspasia Celia Tsampas
With Thanksgiving right around the corner, families and friends struggle to make plans that are conscientious of the COVID-19 guidelines. Alongside restrictions, officials are encouraging small gatherings, preferably with household members only, meaning the dinner table may look a bit different this year. Despite the distance many will have to face, there are still plenty of fun and creative ways to stay connected this Thanksgiving that will hopefully bring a bit of joy into the season.
The pandemic has gotten us all very comfortable with Zoom, and this platform can be a great way to host a virtual Thanksgiving with family members that are unable to visit. Josmely Francisco, a City College junior, is planning to host a Zoom call with her family members in New Jersey. “It’s hard to be away from my family since I’m used to having them here around this time,” she says. Francisco and her family will use Zoom to eat dinner and come together as they usually would, creating a sense of virtual community.
Zoom’s features can allow for many interactive activities, like using “Share Screen” to share videos, music, or any other media that will hopefully get a laugh out of the family (or get you kicked from the call). You can also have a bit of fun with Zoom by setting a bunch of different backgrounds that are usually comical. We may all be confined to our homes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pretend to be on the Zoom beach background while we eat some turkey (or Tofurky! We see you, vegans).
“Friendsgiving” is also a popular idea this year that can bring you together with those special people that you haven’t been able to see in person for a while. You can coordinate with your friends, assign each other some dishes to make or order in, and come together on Thursday night for a long-awaited virtual reunion. On her Zoom call, Francisco plans to get some of her friends to sign on and meet her family, “It’s a good way to get people together that you normally wouldn’t be able to. I usually don’t have the space at home to invite both friends and family, but this year I definitely do.”
Like Francisco, take advantage of Zoom’s possibilities and go crazy with the invitations. Virtual Thanksgiving means being able to connect with a ton of people at once, giving you the opportunity to crash your friend’s Zoom call and embarrass them in front of their families and then rejoin your family’s call later. The more the merrier! We may not physically be together this year, but if we put ourselves to it, there are a lot of ways we can interact with each other and keep our spirits up.
If you’re hosting a virtual Thanksgiving, remember that playing games is always an option! There are plenty of online party games that became popular during the early months of the pandemic, including the popular Among Us, or other traditional online group games like cards or Kahoot! that can keep even the kids entertained. You can even use other platforms to interact with others while you play, like Discord or Houseparty. If you’re not a fan of virtual games, that’s also okay. Family and friends can play together on camera and host fun activities, like dancing, karaoke, or a very interesting game of charades. Some people are also planning kid-friendly activities like arts and crafts, which can potentially be a fun way to stay entertained after dinner is over.
The pandemic has created a difficult and sometimes frustrating situation for many of us, and the holidays will look very different this year. This Thursday, we hope you can all find ways to stay connected with your family and friends and use these tips to have a fun and interactive night. Hopefully, you can all enjoy yourselves and find some comfort in the ways that the Internet has managed to bring us together during this time.
Happy Virtual Thanksgiving, CCNY!
