Christmas - following the rules or not?

[BIWitched]

From what we know right now (and accepting that things may change in the next few weeks) if you're in tier 2 or 3 re you going to obey the rules about not mixing households indoors?

YANBU - I will be ignoring the rules
YABU - it's my civic duty to obey the rules

Well, the news has just said that over half of schools in Northern Ireland has at least one confirmed case of Covid, but having your granny around for Christmas dinner is going to let it rampage throughout the land.

Being as my kids will be in school not socially distancing up to a few days before Xmas we will not be seeing anyone . We are 5 in our family anyway and some distance from family . In-laws both vulnerable . 2 of mine go straight back to mocks so it’s a good reason to have a quiet Xmas

I voted that I will be following the rules but then realised that I will be with 20 other people on Christmas Day!......At work.

Apart from that yes, I’m following the rules.

@legalseagull

If I was in Scotland or Wales it wouldn't be breaking the rules so it seems ridiculous that 5 toddlers can't meet

Check your facts before posting falsities.

I’m a single adult household, so I can spend it with my bubble (my DP - we don’t live together).

However, I’m quite happy to just chill on my todd watching Xmas films, with several peach bellini’s and red wines if needs be. Tempted to do that anyway

It's important to me to he a good role model to my child.

I wonder how you are all going to explain this ignoring of rules to your own kids? What if they are anxious about rule breaking or getting fined aside from getting covid of course, do you care about how they would feel if they kill nana?

Human behaviour saddens me.

[quote Stephie321]"Childcare bubbles are to be used to provide childcare only, and not for the purposes of different households mixing where they are otherwise not allowed to do so."

www.gov.uk/guidance/local-covid-alert-level-high#childcare[/quote]
Exactly. It's to provide essential childcare not to enable people to twist the rules to enable social mixing.

Well as it’s a Christian festival and Christianity is supposed to be all about caring for and loving your neighbour I’m a bit shocked many people are wanting to engage in activities during a Christian festival which could harm their neighbours.

@northernmonkeys100

All the bed wetters saying we will only get out of this if everyone follows the rules need to take a fucking great reality check. Don’t rely on a super vaccine. It may never happen. Learn to live with it. Everyone will catch this virus at some point. Accept it and stop being pathetic.

That's a nasty post and really disrespectful of other people's points of view.

Bloody hell. Really saddened by how many people are planning to break the rules.

The longer it goes on the longer it goes on for all of us
Following the rules wont make it go on for a shorter time.
We got the numbers way down. As soon as we reopened they went up again. Unless we are planning to lockdown indefinitely, this will go on as long as it takes to become endemic or for a vaccine to be produced. Me visiting my grandparents at Christmas won't change that.

I'm not saying whether I will or won't.

What I will say is that, now people have realised this is here for the forseeable and will not be resolved with a 3 week lockdown, they have decided they are not prepared to hold off seeing family indefinitely.

The govt would be far better off imposing a 3 week lockdown just before Xmas in order for people to see their families over the festive period. People would actually obey that.

Multiple open ended lockdowns with no end in sight is not feasible. People won't comply. They already aren't.

@30not13

It's important to me to he a good role model to my child.

I wonder how you are all going to explain this ignoring of rules to your own kids? What if they are anxious about rule breaking or getting fined aside from getting covid of course, do you care about how they would feel if they kill nana?

Human behaviour saddens me.

How are you going to explain to your child if they carry Covid home from school and kill granny? “It’s ok darling, we knew that it was spreading through the schools, but we thought it was important for you to follow the rules.”

@FeckArseDrinkGirls

Do people honestly think that if everyone obeyed the lockdown restrictions to the letter then this will all go away by Christmas/ Easter/ whenever and everything will go back to normal?

Obviously not 🙄

Lower the contacts, lower the cases, lower the restrictions. Everyone gets some freedom back until the cases increases again. Rinse and repeat. That much is bloody obvious and people say the above when they are trying to ignore the bloody obvious and validate their 'I'm going to do what I like' attitude.

We are planning a 2 week self-isolation beforehand and then seeing parents-in-law for Christmas (tier 2 area). I wfh and husband is stay at home dad. Toddler does 1 day a week at childminders and that's basically it for our interaction with anyone else apart from supermarket shop and trips to playgrounds so our risk is about as low as it can get. In-laws are retired and we're shielding so rarely go out, we're about the only people they see.

I will be ignoring all of Doris’s pointless rules.

The govt would be far better off imposing a 3 week lockdown just before Xmas in order for people to see their families over the festive period. People would actually obey that.

I agree. This half arsed lockdown nonsense is going to make very little difference. I’d rather see a short but sprightly enforced lockdown, with mask wearing compulsory or some sort of ‘proper’ exemption card, rather than one you can buy over the counter at Tesco. The card shouldn’t have to be worn, but should be shown on request to whoever is manning the door to supermarkets/chemists, etc. The arseholes running around, refusing to wear masks and pretending to be exempt are making it much more difficult for the truly exempt. I’ll happily give up my rights for a couple of weeks in November, to get the numbers down and let people enjoy time with their loved ones.

My driving instructor claimed she was exempt from wearing a mask because she has mild asthma, which is so mild she hasn't even needed an inhaler since she was 11.

Needless to say she is no longer my instructor.

I think we will probably also self isolate for 2 weeks pre Christmas so we can see family. I'll probably pull DS out of school around the 10th for that reason.

We are having DBro here for Christmas. He lives alone so we'll be his support bubble.

@norunningwithscizzuhz

My driving instructor claimed she was exempt from wearing a mask because she has mild asthma, which is so mild she hasn't even needed an inhaler since she was 11.

Needless to say she is no longer my instructor.

That’s the kind of people that really piss me off. Having an underlying condition does not make you exempt. The symptoms of the underlying condition worsening, when you try to wear a mask, is what makes you exempt. I have asthma before anyone starts. I actually feel that those with SN, autism, mental health conditions, PTSD, etc have a more understandable reason for not wearing a mask.

@AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken
The grandparents will be providing childcare on Christmas Day while the parents are cooking/ tidying etc.

This is the attitude that irks me - the “oh I’m so much smarter than the rest of you plebs because I’ve found a way to get round the rules”.

@northernmonkeys100

All the bed wetters saying we will only get out of this if everyone follows the rules need to take a fucking great reality check. Don’t rely on a super vaccine. It may never happen. Learn to live with it. Everyone will catch this virus at some point. Accept it and stop being pathetic.

Exactly. This magical vaccine everyone is banging on about may never happen. It's more likely the virus will weaken naturally and just stay with us. No amount of hand wringing and wailing will change the situation.

Our government have proven time and again they cannot control this. I do not see an issue with people using their own judgement to maintain some level of life, I'm mot saying having 20 people from 5 households round is the way forward, but there is a happy medium.

[quote MrsFezziwig]**@AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken
The grandparents will be providing childcare on Christmas Day while the parents are cooking/ tidying etc.

This is the attitude that irks me - the “oh I’m so much smarter than the rest of you plebs because I’ve found a way to get round the rules”.[/quote]
Agreed. I'm expecting more posts about funeral services for the turkey. It's not clever.

[quote Stephie321]"Childcare bubbles are to be used to provide childcare only, and not for the purposes of different households mixing where they are otherwise not allowed to do so."

www.gov.uk/guidance/local-covid-alert-level-high#childcare[/quote]
This, this, a million times this.

Childcare bubbles are for childcare and that is it! My parents look after DS twice a week and they pick him up from my doorstep and I pick him up from theirs. None of us enter the other's house apart from DS. There is no socialising. I treat their childcare the same as when DS is at nursery - I drop him at the door and pick him up at the door, I don't go in.

Before my area was placed in tier 2, my parents and I didn't meet up outside to socialise at all but now that we have the rule of 6, we've met up twice at a park but ensured social distancing at all times.

This will be the first Christmas Day in my entire life that I don't spending buzzing between houses (can be up to 4 different houses across the day!). I've always loved a busy Christmas seeing as many of my loved ones as possible but this year will be me, DH and DS and we'll FaceTime those we'd normally see face to face. A usual Christmas Day could include seeing up to 34 relatives across the day (and more in the days around it) so this year is going to be very different but I'm strangely looking forward to it.

For the record, I've also stuck to all the rules consistently since this whole situation began. I'm not being a martyr, a robot or a sheep or any of the other derogatory names that have been used to call out people doing what's best in these strange times.