With Halloween just around the corner, followed by Thanksgiving and Christmas, the authorities of Sacramento have released special guidelines for how to celebrate small and quietly. A quick read of these rules and you'll see that traditional family get-togethers are not going to be allowed in the state.
(HEAR IT ON THE RADIO, HERE)
The state says that holiday gatherings must not allow more than three separate households to combine for the event. This puts us in a difficult position, because its a tough question. "Who are we supposed to cut?" Three households could literally mean, The family that wants to hold the Thanksgiving Dinner, the Grandparents that you see fairly often, and maybe one of the adult children who has a family of his own. But what about the cousins? What about the many families that invite co-workers or simply friends that are going to otherwise eat alone.
what the guidelines should have said was, " if you feel sick or were exposed to someone with the Chinese Virus, simply don't go to your holiday get-together." See how simple that would have been.
Continuing on. California says gatherings should last no more than two hours.
No more than two hours? It takes several hours for all the different family members to drive or fly to the place. The Turkey takes several hours to cook unless you do the outdoor Turkey Fry method. If you are in a family with a lot of kids, they need several hours to burn off all that energy outside away from the adults. I don't know about you, but Holiday meals are all day deals. The "lunch" alone is two hours, the desserts are several hours as your stomach gives in to the endless demands from your fork. A holiday feast is technically about 5 hours if you are paying attention.
And no mention from our governor about Tryptophan, that is the chemical in turkey that always makes you sleepy. If you force us to power eat a turkey, not leaving enough time to properly hydrate and decompress with desserts and drinks, then you are going to have a lot of people falling asleep at the wheel of their vehicles when they drive home after. Not a good idea, better to leave the holidays the way they are and let people recover without being rushed!
The madness continues, as Sacremento advises you Gatherings should be and MUST be done outside.
Yeah, that's a great idea from Governor Newsome! Let's freeze grandma.
Of course for the families that actually plan to follow this silliness, this simply means that many of the Seasoned citizens in the family will not be invited, because we all know it's wrong to force our grandparents to eat outside in the rain or cold.
Now, if you are getting upset with me, saying "but its for the greater good, and at least there are no masks" Well, not so fast. The state guidelines for holidays also say QUOTE People are also expected to take safety precautions, including wearing masks, practicing physical distancing and washing hands."
So yes, as if all this wasn't silly enough, you had better be wearing your masks at the Thanksgiving table!
And one last observation, remember that what they call guidelines, can very quickly become enforced at the local levels, as we have seen neighbors report on each other. For me, that is probably the saddest result of this whole Stay-at-Home experiment, I never expected so many people to take to the phones and spy on each other.
I wish everyone a good holiday, and let us all pray that the new normal becomes a thing of the past!
