Christmas needs to be cancelled.

[AlternativePerspective]

So the suggestion to make it possible for the world to go and be super spreaders at Christmas is to stay in lockdown until Christmas, then open up for five days, then go back into lockdown for another 25 days (at least), five days for every day we’re out of lockdown.

Are people really that desperate to have a get together they could have at any other time of the year, maybe in the summer when this pandemic is under control, that they’re willing to spend months in lockdown to achieve it? Really?

My personal opinion is that it is our duty as a society to have a low key Christmas regardless of whether they take this ridiculous measure or not.

I understand that for some they want to see family at Christmas, but these ridiculous suggestions have gone too far.

Just cancel Christmas and give us an extra bank holiday next year to make up for it.

When you say the world, I assume you’re referring to the UK. I’m in Melbourne Aus and after our lockdown, we’ve had no new cases for 20 days and only 3 active cases.
Christmas will still be different but we will be celebrating.

I don't think anyone is going to be stopping people visiting their terminally ill parents or stopping us having uncle Fred who's on his own for Christmas dinner. But there's a middle ground between that and normal Chrismases. So do we really need drinks parties with all the neighbours, or gatherings with three different family groups over three days?

I don't want to have a lockdown for another whole month, with all it means for businesses just for people to act recklessly. So we'll probably spend Boxing Day in the garden for an hour with my MiL rather than get together with the extended family for the whole day. We'll miss the socialising and seeing the little ones, but it's a balance.

And telling people they're joyless for wanting to put their lives and businesses on hold for another month just so others can have their normal social life for a couple of days is unfair.

@BerryTown

As a DW of a critical care nurse, those of you saying you don't care if you catch Covid-19 are definitely being selfish. The NHS isn't there to pick up the pieces of you deliberately putting yourself at risk.

Why not, it picks up the pieces of smokers, overeaters, sky divers, skateboarders, tree climbers etc etc?

Cancel Christmas?
Good luck with that lol
That would be political suicide in any Christmas celebrating nation

*So do we really need drinks parties with all the neighbours, or gatherings with three different family groups over three days?

Literally no one has said that though have they.

Can only hazard a guess at how many millions are secretly praying for full lockdown over Christmas to spare them the purgatory of christmas day with the extended family.

It's a lot more than would ever admit it, that's for sure.

@Faultymain5 Already answered this upthread
Of course and you don't need to tell NHS workers that, it is what they do everyday.
The difference is this time there are nurses with PTSD from what they went through in March/April/May and faced with maybe having to go through it again in Jan/Feb/March.
Plus the more patients in hospital with Covid-19, the more everyone in hospital is exposed to the virus - staff and patients alike. The more transmission there is within hospital, the more people take it home to their families.

Well, firstly, we live in a democracy where laws have to be made by Parliament to be enforcable, and they've not.

Secondly, thus is such an unreasonable imposition on civil liberties that its unenforcable.

It's the 70 plus grandparents who won't abide by it. How can you tell people who know that it's statistically likely that they might develop a health condition of old age by next Christmas, that they mustn't meet family for this Christmas? Just in case they catch covid, which statistically is unlikely to kill them?

@ancientgran you clearly suggested what would work for you and your family with zero thought that it might leave other people alone. Many people will actually get together between Christmas and New Year because anything else is impossible. And yes I will be seeing both my parents and my ILs between Christmas and New Year but we've been seeing them for care purposes every couple of weeks anyway and, horrors, I even hugged my mum when I had to tell her that her husband of 62 years, who she couldn't visit in hospital might not last the weekend.

A highly transmissable infectious virus doesn't have the same impact on staff and their families, on other patients in hospital and their families, and the wider community as alcohol, smoking, overeating, bad driving, dangerous sports etc.

1. I'm not a lover of Christmas. Our 'traditions' are not only focused on one day, so from a selfish perspective I really don't mind whether it's 'cancelled' or not.

1. People are going to see their loved ones on that day whether it's cancelled or not. No matter what the government tells them they can and can't do. So the point is moot.

1. It makes no odds anyway. All lockdown does is kicks the ball down the road for a few miles. Sooner or later we'll catch it up.

1. At some point there will be no hospitality industry to go back to at all. It will be dead in the water, as will the morale, mental health and occupations of a good proportion of the nation.

Despite the protestations that 'if we all obey The Rules we'll be out of this sooner' - no we don't. The virus is out of Pandora's box now and it's not going back in. (Nb. As it happens I will be a good obedient little citizen and obey The Rules - because parents are dead, we are not close to the in-laws and friends are vulnerable/shielding or have also decided to obey The Rules. Therefore I have no real reason not to. But nor would I report anyone who didn't).

This, absolutely:

Purplecatshopaholic Thu 19-Nov-20 09:18:13
They will relax restrictions at Christmas because people will ignore them if they don’t anyway! Take responsibility for your and your loved ones health and have a low key Christmas regardless what the restrictions say - the virus doesn’t know or care whether it’s Christmas or not...

I'd say, what about those who are working over Christmas? Not me, as my work is closed, but one or two friends without children often volunteer to work and then have New Year off.

We have a low-key family Christmas every year, and afterwards, most years I usually get the train to visit elderly DF for the day and also meet up with sibling who travels from a different direction, but not this time - not worth the risk to him. We'll wait until whenever it is safe to do so, hopefully some time next year, visiting him separately if needs be to avoid more than 2 households mixing.

I agree with @AlternativePerspective

Steady on, Oliver Cromwell!

The thing is people are missing the nuance. Yes, I could say right well I won't meet family because I don't want to give them covid and kill them.

Then they could die of something else before next Christmas and I'd be beside myself that we'd not had that Christmas together.

I'm sure I'd be beside myself if I gave them covid too but it really isn't as black and white as people are making out.

I don't think it's possible or desirable to CANCEL Christmas, but YANBU to suggest that it could be done on a smaller scale, and big parties avoided.

I think that people should be able to see their parents at that time, but having all their cousins and friends and a huge get-together should be avoided. Especially as the vaccine news means that next Christmas is likely to be normal. Obviously, compassionate exceptions should be made for people for whom this is likely to be their last Christmas, and who are themselves prepared to take the Covid risk.

What I really hope is that the authorities will be tough on New Year partying: lots of mostly younger people getting drunk together and doubtless forgetting all social distancing. Superspreader central, if not controlled.

Lets have all the children upset due to non appearance of FC yeah? And no Nanny/Grandad/Aunties/Uncles? Yipp bloody ee! Christmas is a wonderful event .No holidays ,and precious little else to be happy about! Lets not forget Boris was practically strong armed into this lockdown .Many Pubs /Restaurants are hanging on with slim pickings ,in the hope of being able to reopen for the Christmas period. YABU Im afraid!

68 million people.
132,0000 police officers.

Good luck enforcing anything.

Its usual for major engineering works to be carried out over the Christmas period, planned months in advance. This is not likely to change.

No I can’t cycle or walk to 120 miles to my parents.

Not everyone has a huge family Christmas, with family living nearby. Christmas Day is just me and my son, but we do have a small family gathering the week before. My son just wants to see his nan and grandad, I’d quite like to see my mum. We have seen them once this year. We have not seen any other family since last December.

I’ve worked from home since March, I see no-one apart from the Hermes courier, the Sainsburys checkout and my similarly isolated next door neighbour over the garden wall.

So yes the idea of ‘Christmas’ was keeping me going.

Literally no one has said that though have they

If people are told they can have a normal Christmas, that's exactly what some of them will do. I doubt if people will own up to it, though. It will only be people saying about their terminally ill relative etc.

So much has been invested emotionally in there being some form of Christmas family get togethers, that I think there is an acceptance of restrictions either side of Christmas for this to happen and the impact to be minimised.

I'd shut non-food retail, pubs and restaurants as the main thing were it my choice.

Boris has upped defence spending today. No doubt by next year we will be at war.

Cancel Christmas?
Do you have children?
Or are your children all grown up so it doesn't matter much to you anyway?
I shall be enjoying Christmas and there is feck all you, the government or covid can do about it.

At the rate it is spreading through schools around here, I think this "lockdown" has failed and the schools need to be closed for a month over the Christmas period.
That's just my personal opinion.

As regards Christmas being cancelled, I think loved ones should be allowed to get together (immediate family as opposed to big gatherings) providing the schools have been closed prior to this to lessen the risk of passing it on to grandparents etc.

The local pantomime is still going ahead, which is all well and good (social disatnacing in the theatre and limited numbers etc), but is it really possible to social distance when everyone has to rush to the toilet during the interval?
Which ever way you look at it, it's all one big mess!

'It makes no odds anyway. All lockdown does is kicks the ball down the road for a few miles. Sooner or later we'll catch it up.'

I think we all know its been a case of 'kicking the can down the road' all year. Or another way of putting it, managing the surge so we may get an icu bed should we need it. So in that regards 'it makes no odds' is bollocks, as we know in the first wave capacity wasnt ever compromised.