Travelling to the UK for Christmas?

[Velocity]

We have travel booked back to the uk for Christmas. By that point it will be one year since I've seen my parents, brothers, nephews and nieces. If you normally travel to the uk for Christmas/ New Year is this still your plan or have you already given up hope?

Forgot to add, haven't seen our families either since last Christmas. It's a bit sad, I miss them a lot.

My dd is in a European city for a year. She’s got flights booked on the 20th, but two week quarantine both ways will make it impossible to have a fun Christmas or go back to work straight after. Her dB is in Manchester so he’s screwed.

@tanteRose

Currently if you live on mainland Korea you get transport from Incheon if you don’t have a private car at the airport. And if you are out on any of the islands there are set ferries or flights you can take or it is nearly 2 million Won to sleep on a wooden foot and be served cold food for 2 weeks.

I am currently regretting not going home at summer but honestly think I am remembering a UK that no longer exists and it maybe best to wait till June 2021 before I next good back.

Hope is fading tbh. We are in France, the UK quarantine is in still in place, plus all our families are in Scotland where there is a "no mixing households indoors" rule that doesn't look like being lifted any time soon. It's dire. We haven't seen them since February. DHs mum has gone into a care home (dementia) since then and he's fairly sure that she won't know him any more. And my mum is getting a bit desperate as my two are her only grandchildren.

If the quarantine is lifted, if the household mixing indoors in Scotland is relaxed and if my parents want to take the risk of us staying with them, we will go. I've had COVID already recently, none of the rest of us have any specific vulnerabilities. We would take every precaution going and are used to wearing masks / gestes barrieres anyway.

We're in Abu Dhabi and hoping that we can get home for Xmas. Fingers crossed the quarantine rules change and the testing on arrival is going a head by then. We've got flights to use as part of my husbands package, use or loose. The other fact is that I'm planning on moving back to the UK with the children (for their education) and really need to see the school we've chosen and hopefully find somewhere to live from April.

Those needing swabs in the U.K. to travel back home. You wouldn’t be able to use the testing centres for travel tests, you book a private test. A colleague has just been abroad where they required a neg covid test and she had to go privately. The testing centres are just for those with symptoms.

Must be horrible for those with family in different countries at this time. Not sure I would want to travel to the U.K. right now either... bad enough living here!

Db is going to try to get back at Christmas, but will have to quarantine. he wants us to go and see him, but the rules say no visitors, so I don't know. If he doesn't have COVID, then fine, but he is planning on his 2 adult kids staying with him, so that would be three households, and 4 people...and if dm and I were to visit (we are dm's bubble), then that's another household and 6 people. Given he lives in the European hotspot atm, the chances of him actually getting out might be vanishingly small come December.

Would have loved to see my mum. She was supposed to come here to see us for the first time in 2 years this May. I had time booked off work for the holidays and was hoping to get to England but have now cancelled my leave and will be working instead.

I am feeling hopeless about it. Cases are rising so fast in the UK, I can only see restrictions increasing.

Really disappointed. In my bit of the US we've kept cases low, and it was looking so good in the UK in terms of cases just a few weeks ago. I'd started hoping we'd actually get to see family this year.

I’m also in a country that requires a negative test before departing the UK. People who have done it are paying £100-200 per test from private clinics. For a family of four the cost and invasiveness doesn’t seem worth it. And that’s not taking into account the chance of someone testing positive which would delay our departure possibly by weeks.

We are in Australia, so totally impossible. We are being told to prepare for international borders remaining closed until end 2021. I haven't seen my family in over a year.

Wow, I posted really optimistically in this thread a month ago, but it's looking less and less likely for us now.

My city has gone into a perimetral lockdown (No coming in or going out although activity inside continues as normal).

Gutted. This would have been the last year with all the siblings and cousins together before my two BILs move abroad

We've given up hope.

We live in France. Could deal with the quarantine in the Uk (would make it a short visit just to my parents) but currently we are not legally allowed to step foot in their flat so no point in going. I'm also wary of stricter rules coming in between now and then in both countries.

Fortunately we managed 2 weeks at my parents this summer during the 5 week travel corridor, but my DC are used to going 4-5 times a year to stay with their grandparents (roughly for 9 weeks total) so they're finding this very hard. As our my parents who miss them awfully.

This is a huge disadvantage of living abroad - I know people in the UK are struggling not seeing family who live close by but at least when restrictions are lifted they can dash round no problem. Abroad you have 2 countries' regulations to consider + travel to organise (and hope it isn't cancelled) + of course it can't just be for a couple of hours to catch up, it needs to work around school and work constraints.

Nope.
I'm in France, my parents are in Scotland. Not seen them since July 2019, don't expect to until at least July 2021. They're a bit frail. It's not worth the risk.
Doesn't make it any easier, though...

Hope is all but gone here too - we're under 6-weeks of strict rules starting from Sunday evening, family is In Scotland. Will see how late we can leave it to reschedule the travel tickets. We never have Christmas in home country so no decorations, no traditions and I haven't been able to stock up on random baking items like mixed fruit which is hard to come by. I'm not the type to go all out for Christmas but a little Christmas cheer is nice! But before Christmas we have st Nicholas to get through and non essential shops are about to close. Might have to do a decoration dash tomorrow!

Thanks for all your posits - it's helps hearing what your plans are. Christmas is the 1-year without seeing family - so a log time.

This will be our 14th Christmas abroad, and our 12th without any family here, so it's fairly normal for us. In a way it's nice to be away from all the expectations, and just do our own thing. We don't get caught up in the madness of driving long distances, crazy amounts of groceries, big supermarket queues, etc. We do go out and buy some nice stuff but not silly amounts.

We decorate a bit - we get a tree and hang lots on it, and put lights up in the garden. In my town, people do a really nice job of decorating their front gardens.

Fairly early on in the season I track down things like glace cherries, mixed fruit, mince pie filling etc - they're not easy to find but not impossible.

We have a Christmas Day routine. Nice brunch, then presents, then a walk around the town and watch people skating on the pond, then home to cook a nice piece of beef, gravy, etc. Crackers at the table, and silly hats.

It usually snows here before Christmas, so that makes it feel 'proper'.

I don't miss Christmas in the UK, I just miss my family like crazy. I haven't seen them since 2019, and I really had hoped to see them at some point in 2020.

I’m still intending to go and quarantine with my parents as per the current rules - I don’t think lockdown has changed my plans but yes it’s really hard to figure out

Do you have to hotel quarantine for 2 weeks before entry and afterwards? would you be able to do that - if you had too I mean

Why would you need to quarantine for 2 weeks before entry? We’ll be doing so anyway to do everything we can to be covid free, but we’ll be coming from home and returning home so not sure why a hotel quarantine would be needed (our home country has not mandated either)

I haven't seen family since July 19 and in the meantime two close relatives (one parent) have died.
I booked for the first week in Dec but the outward flight has already been cancelled by the airline. I was hanging on, but with Saturday's announcement, I'll just cancel everything now.

Please don't travel to the UK. Our NHS is already struggling to care for the numbers of ill people. We are in a lockdown because our useless government has not stopped people holidaying. It's hard I know but just accept you have to Zoom and be sensible.

Yes. We said the same over the summer when the maskless Brits flooded our beaches.

Agreed. It shouldn't have been allowed but if people just thought about it their own moral compass should have stopped them doing it!

I don't think pointing the finger and blaming is helpful, people just want to see their families whether they are abroad or all in the UK.

I was lucky that we managed to see our family in June and my parents came over in September but we've not seen my nieces and nephews for 18 months which makes me very sad- they are somewhere with closed borders.

In some ways DS makes it easier to be just us for Christmas, he's 3.5 so first year of really getting excited by Christmas so we'll have a nice day and probably meet up with some other expats who are in a similar situations.