To think it's a straight choice between keeping your parents and grandparents safe and "a normal Christmas". You can't have both.

[PrincessNutNuts]

If members of your household go to work/school/the gym/the pub/ the shops or anywhere indoors with other people,

And if you don't all self-isolate for 14 days before Christmas,

Then you risk giving Covid to your parents and grandparents if you mix with them indoors during those 5 days.

That's just a fact isn't it?

YANBU Yes, you will be risking unknowingly endangering your loved ones,

YABU ???

[quote ironicj]@Nicknacky I don't know what you do so I can't have a meaningful conversation about it, but clearly we have very different experiences which have gone towards shaping our experiences.

I'm entitled to my opinion that multiple households mixing over Christmas, for the sake of it/tradition/'because it's Christmas', with the exclusion of those at risk with their mental health, is not worth the resulting covid onslaught.
[/quote]
@ironicj so in your world, it’s only ok if someone is at risk of suicide then?

What about my FIL who is terminally ill? This will be his last Christmas....
What about people who have been living in their own for the last 10 months and have seen more or less no one throughout the whole thing?

Should they also be told to ‘wait a bit more’? Regardless of the fact the ‘grand parents’ might well do some much more risky activities themselves? After all, if you only have seen people face to face a couple of times in 10 months, that’s plenty right?

Making blanket statements like this doesn’t help tbh. It’s a.ie inting people and isolating those who actually need support/contact with others. The cost might well not be immediately obvious. Actually you migth never see that cost in a ward or as a number in statistics. It doesn’t mean that the human cost isn’t real to them :(

TonMoulin Whichnis why I’m dubious that ironicj is an A+E doctor with such blank and white thinking and disregard for mental health........

I'm so fed up of these threads. So many. You don't agree, we get it. Just stay at home, whatever.

I think most people are sensible enough to do what's best for them and their family.
No one wants to willingly expose older relatives and older relatives also tend to know their own minds and risks.
I work along side many gp and they would be shocked by some of the patronising comments.

Personally if I had dp still and I wanted to see them I would isolate us all for 2 weeks so I could safely see them.

Other people who may visit us have been told our movements and what our exposures will be.

When it comes to the PILS we have decided ultra caution is best and we will give them an incredibly wide berth.

Heidipi.

Please don't feel guilty... It's sad you think you're doing something wrong.

heidipi Your lovely mum!

It shows how much family means and it’s easy for posters to say that we shouldn’t see them this year.

@TheRubyRedshoes @Nicknacky thank you! I can guarantee we'll be doing each other's heads in by Boxing Day morning, tbh 😂

@heidipi. No judgement from me, just delight at hearing how happy it made your mum. [Fsmile]

@NeverTwerkNaked thanks - the thing is that it's not all (totally normal Xmas with office parties, whole school discos, nights out) or nothing (stay completely at home as per the rest of the year), though it feels that way sometimes.

Exactly , I totally agree.

@GnomeDePlume

Lots of people seem to be making decisions based on their perception of their own risk or the perception of risk to vulnerable family members.

What gets ignored is that it isnt just about the people who may directly get sick. There are also the people who will need to care for the people who get sick - family members, care home workers, hospital staff - and therefore increase their own risk of getting sick.

Nobody is asking their opinion.

Ok, here is the thing, and I say this as someone in a health care family where about 80% of my family members are doctors or nurses.

If you aren't willing to take care of sick people, and people who are ill because they chose to go on a rainforest trek and caught a weird parasite, or went to an orgy and caught a gross communicable disease, or God forbid spent Christmas with family, and do it non-judgementally, you shouldn't be in healthcare. Carers are exposed to diseases, that's part of the job, and it doesn't mean they get to control what is ok for people to do.

@Goosefoot i agree. The emotional blackmail around it all is gobsmacking.

m 47 and have never been drunk. Our family Christmas is 2 households and six people like it always is. ONE family NO ONE drinks at these gatherings. Christmas Day and Boxing Day not 5 days. I really really wish media pundits and the scientists would stop thinking of and treating us all as if we are all irresponsible pissheads who are into football and Strictly. The football analogies they keep using at the press conferences is more proof of this. I wonder how many who are advocating people spend Christmas on their own away from their families (they can pontificate about bubbles as much as they like but people WILL end up on their own) will sacrifice 8 hours of their own Christmas Day to volunteer for the Samaritans who normally receive 11"000 calls on Christmas Day in non Covid years. (400"000 calls in the whole of December alone) I bet i could count how many of them would.......on one hand!!

It's a risk mine are willing to take to spend the day with us and for my grandad at least, who is nearly 90, may be his last Christmas. I'm not gonna be that patronising prick who goes "oh but you might die [even though the death rate is low and none of my family bar grandad are high risk] so no Turkey for you"

[quote ironicj]@WeCanFlyHigher I think the govt should not be encouraging household mixing at the moment. I'm an A&E doctor working with lots of covid positive patients. Call me selfish but I don't think Christmas is a big enough excuse to to add so much fuel to this fire, when it's me and my colleagues who will be at so much more risk putting out this fire.
So I will be practising what I preach and keeping away from my family to keep them safe.

I'm no specialist or expert on covid 19. But I've seen a lot more of it than most people. It is bigger than our right to a 'normal Christmas'.

[/quote]
Why are covid patients in A&E?

@lockeddownandcrazy

parents (80s) are taking the line that they would rather have quality time and take the risk. their choice

But if they end up in intensive care they keep another patient out? Can't they see that?

OP I agree with you.

Like a lot of people last night, I spoke with my parents (in their mid70s and smokers) about Christmas plans.

They are undecided about coming to our house and although it made me feel a bit down, I totally understand.

They have been really careful and I'm not sure if their bodies would cope if they caught the virus.

We also live in an extremely high Covid rate area which is obviously influencing their choice.

Although I guess that could change over the next 4 weeks.

LastGoldenDaysOfSummer I can’t work out if you are being serious or not........

YANBU.

I'm currently sitting in an office looking at my Dad who is sitting in the next office . It's my mum's day off today but usually she'd be sitting opposite me in the same office. My dad poses more risk to me than I do to him because he makes site visits to schools, hospitals, care homes and unventilated plant rooms.

My in laws, well, they possibly won't be here next Christmas anyway. Mil has severe dementia and fil who is her lone carer isn't coping very well. He ended up in hospital in summer and is severely depressed.

Whereas my parents are early 60’s, work full time (NHS and a teacher) and have both had Covid so can’t you see it’s a different decision for others? We also see my mum most days anyway as she lives alone and is our ‘support bubble’, so why wouldn’t we see her on Christmas Day? That’s what everyone means by it not being black and white.

That should be YABU

Yabvvu.
We are the parents and one of us is about to be a grandparent. We're early 50s and work in busy industries, as do our grown up dc. So between us we see hundreds of people each day.
People with health issues aside,
The "I've not seen a soul since March stay home stay safe brigade" should probably do that as I doubt your immune system will cope with anything, never mind covid.

But if they end up in intensive care they keep another patient out? Can't they see that?

I’m not sure it’s at all reasonable to make ordinary people suddenly responsible for the health services ability/inability to cope with something like this.

That’s the job of the government and management within the sector.

Clearly they were woefully unprepared. Hopefully they have learnt something for the longer term. There were high levels of compliance with the first lockdown to give them time to get their act together. It appears not much has been achieved here either.

Spending time with family is a basic human need. People have sacrificed plenty already and a certain proportion won’t live to see another Christmas, Covid or no Covid. My parents do not want to be ‘kept safe’ by keeping themselves away from their loved ones, lonely and miserable. That isn’t worth it for them.

I expect they would sign a directive if asked. We need to start having more grown up conversations about this, but to acknowledge, as a starting point, that there are worse things in life than getting Covid and many people do not want to be ‘kept safe’ at all costs.

As things currently stand I'm not allowed to see or speak to a single human being face to face

Of course you are "allowed". What are you talking about?