We are now finished up the second Christmas season overshadowed by Covid (and hopefully the last!).
On one hand, it provides a nice excuse to stay home and have a quiet holiday. But it’s also been almost two years since we’ve been able to visit some extended family due to border closures. We ended up in the middle: we had some extended family travel this way, and other family gatherings happened, although with several absences due to people in Covid quarantine.
The Christmas/holiday season has been extended by at least a week, as they kids’ school has been closed for this week to try and help control the Covid spread. It’s nice to have them home, but the logistics of it get a little hairy with both parents working….
On a non-Covid note, this Christmas season has been frightening cold. I think we’re going on two weeks now without a single day about -20°C. The good news is that the car even managed to start at -38°C! Although it is finally forecast to get to 0°C next week. :)
Looking forward, we’re seriously looking at an international trip this summer. We’re sort of betting that the Covid situration will be mostly under control both ‘here’ and ‘there’ in six months. We actually had our flights selected two weeks ago, but the night before I went to put my money down, the Covid rules changed, meaning that wouldn’t be able to take our full trip proposed under the new rules. We reviewed the cancellation rules and figure the Covid rules will change (several times) before our trip, so we’re going to lock down tickets as soon as the travel agent returns from holidays.
More broadly, one of the longer-term Covid effects — its destructive effect on individual’s religious faith — is sadly starting to show. When Covid first struck, I figured that if Covid lockdowns (and thus only virtual church meetings) went on for sometime, some of the congregation members would drift away. For some, the (physical) church meetings was the extent of the religious expression in the best of times. But for many others, meeting with and being physically present with their fellow believers served to regularly strengthen their faith, to find faithful answers the questions that arose from daily life, and to help put their doubts behind them; to be cut off from this strength and continue faithful requires developing and maintaining an independent, internal source of strength and faith. Against this background, I’ve had several friends (4 come to mind in the last month or so) that have declared their departure from the Faith; none of them have even hinted that Covid was what brought this about, but that is the backdrop these things are happening against. To have predicted this doesn’t mean it’s still not sad to see it happen.
Hopefully, the Covid will soon be behind us. May warm days soon be yours.
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