We need to stop the spread of COVID-19. The best way to do that is for people to stay safe in their homes for extended periods of time, which reduces the spread of the infection and gives hospitals a chance to treat the people who already have it.  Most people, though, understandably don’t want another open-ended “stay-in-place” government order that keeps people from going to work and hurts local businesses. 

But what if we all just VOLUNTARILY decided to “stay home for the holidays”?  That is, what if we all decided to stay home with our loved ones for the two holiday periods coming up this year? 

Look at the calendar.  We have two 10-14 day periods where we could all stay #home4theholidays coming up:

1. Thanksgiving Week (11.20-11.29).  If we take that week off, starting Friday, November 20th through Sunday, November 29th, that is about 10 days where we’d put a real dent in the COVID spread.  And what are you missing?  Thanksgiving Week is always slow — most people don’t go in Wednesday or Friday, and how much do you get done in a two-day week? And you were already going to be home for a few days anyway.

2.  End of year (12.21-1.3).  If we all just stayed #home4theholidays for just two weeks starting on Monday, December 21st and going until Sunday, January 3rd, we’d knock down COVID without really changing that much about most of our holiday routines.  After all, do you really get any work done over those last two weeks of the year?  And, yes, you’d have to give up the holiday parties and a New Year’s Eve party, but, face it, New Year’s Eve always sucks, anyway. You’ll have a better time binge watching movies with your family kids, parents, or other loved ones.

What do we mean by staying #home4theholidays? If possible:

1. Take time off from work, or work from home.
2. Shack up with your family, friends, or whenever you want — but ONLY THEM for the duration.
3. Celebrate the season!  Eat, drink, play games, bingewatch, Zoom with absent family and friends, whatever. But do it at home. 

So let’s all stay #home4theholidays. Get all your food shopping done before Thanksgiving Week, all your holiday shopping done before the 21st (and do it locally!).  Stock up on all the food you’ll need, go home to your family, and then take a holiday vacation.

Stop thinking about that time at home as a “lockdown.”  It’s not.  Think of it as a special holiday vacation celebration where we can all be together for the holidays (and some of us can cook our own Chinese dinner for the 24th).  

Again, this would be completely voluntary. We understand if a lot of people can’t do it.

• A lot of people will still need to work, including not just first responders but people working in delivery, grocery, takeout, etc. But that just means that those of us who CAN take off SHOULD take off, to do our part to reduce the spread. 
• A lot of people don’t celebrate those holidays. (Yeah, it’s a bummer Hanukkah doesn’t line up well with the last two weeks of December this year). That’s fine.  Don’t get hung up on the “holidays” part, focus on the “home” part!
• A lot of people don’t have family they can celebrate with. Okay, but it doesn’t have to be “family.” The point is to stay at home with a small group of people, the SAME people throughout the period. It’s easier to do this if you’re not alone.

But even if everyone can’t or won’t participate, a lot of us CAN stay home.  And we SHOULD!

So let’s stay #home4theholidays this year, and finish 2020 by dropping a hammer on COVID-19!