On The Spot: Adapting holiday traditions

“My cousins, my grandma, aunt and uncle and I all go to three different malls in one day, but that’s not going to happen this year because we’re trying to distance with everything going on.”

“I make gingerbread houses with my family. It’s very special because we get to spend time together and talk about what’s going on in our lives. My family and I will probably spend Christmas by ourselves instead of going to visit family.”

“Every Christmas Eve, we open one gift from each other, and Christmas morning, we wake up very early, and we celebrate Christmas, and sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus. Our traditions provide more time with family and time to celebrate Christ and his birth. Normally, we have my biological family over, but right now they’re all quarantined because they’re very susceptible to COVID-19, so our...

“My grandma buys us all pajamas each year for Christmas, and we have to put them on and walk down the stairs and take a family photo. We have to open our presents in our pajamas, and we call them Christmas jammies. It reminds me that I have a loving family, and even with COVID-19, my grandma is still going to bring us our jammies.”

“Usually, my mom and I spend eight hours on a Saturday baking. We’ll bake cookies and all sorts of stuff that we usually go and hand out to our neighbors. It’s a really big part of my Christmas to spend time with my family and because of school and work, it’s not everyday that I get to spend a lot of time with them. This year, we probably won’t see as much family because we don’t want ...

“Traditionally, we go to my parents house in Fort Worth, and we get together with all my cousins. We’ll do stockings and gift exchanges. I’m very big on nostalgia, just thinking about the fact that we’ve done that since I was born, and it’s been consistent in my life. [We are not doing it] this year, but in the past. I’m going to try to figure out something that my family can do outside, ...