It’s that time of year again, but with a twist. Everyone’s prepped for that grand time called Christmas, even though the celebration might be two years late. Over the weekend, city government workers aboard trucks have begun installing Christmas lanterns along the lamp posts; an affirmation to many that indeed, we’re really celebrating the yule season ‘normally’ this year.
As I remember a few days before Christmas in 2020, I was chatting with a neighbor who lived across the street and we talked about ‘so this was how it’s going to be’…face-to-face with nothing but an empty road separating us. Covid-19 had by then imposed a martial law-like quarantine atmosphere stranding everyone. All the city streets were deserted, except for checkpoints at designated stations and all citizens, except the front-liners were the only ones allowed outside. The city had all but seemed like a ghost town or the set of a zombie movie. Evening carolers were noticeably absent and even the usually noisy neighborhood refrained from playing Christmas carols. No one just wasn’t in the mood.
Back to the present and this morning at the local grocery, the radio blared an overall nineteen thousand total of covid cases in the country with a total of five deaths. So, even with the return to open Christmas celebrations, covid is still here like the ghost of Christmases past. Ironically, while this at one time may have been the situation back in 2020, the difference would be the speed by which that year had reached this number before speeding further up.
The reported 19,000 then stayed only for a while before dramatically increasing two-fold during Delta’s spread till October 2020. In comparison, this year’s ascent to that total seem like at a snail’s pace, so that this led our local grocer to say, ‘Just wear that mask you have on.’ How would she know? That’s the other thing…in two years, almost everyone has either become an expert, a doctor or a master in health and wellness, courtesy of Google university.
Who remembers the time we laughed and scoffed while a US president recommended silly (even dangerous) remedies for covid even as witch doctor remedies had their merry run in many a neighborhood? During one wake I attended last year, two people were happily recommending their ‘proven’ formula at keeping the virus at bay: lots of vitamin C and hot water to drink before brekkie. Lucky them. Unlucky for the old person lying in a coffin many meters away.
No matter. So here we are again, waiting for Christmas. All of us veterans emerging from the mist of two years we would rather soon forget. For all we have gone through, it’s no time to be Grinch-y this year. Nor is there an excuse to be extravagant too. It’s Christmas again and we should just first be thankful we’re still here. As our local grocer said, ‘ just keep your mask on, you’ll be fine.’
