I was munching on nachos at the Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City three days before Christmas when the text from my mother made my phone rumble.
“Are you anywhere you can call me?” she wrote.
I didn’t have to. I knew what was up.
My stomach had sunk a bit on Dec. 17 when I saw that the “Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes” was closing in Manhattan due to the fast-spreading omicron variant of COVID-19.
I had flashbacks to March 2020 when the world shut down, but my first thought was about the coming Christmas. After not holding a big family gathering on Long Island last year, we were going to be making up for it this year.
I had decided to take a mini-vacation in Atlantic City before driving north for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of filet mignon and baked clams, which is always the best meal of my year.
As it turned out, the overpriced casino nachos would be my big fancy meal for the holiday.
“I’m getting dinner. What’s up?” I wrote back to my mom, bracing for news that would make only The Grinch smile.
“Miles has Covid,” she responded. “Christmas is canceled.”
As it turned out, eight of the 16 people who were set to attend that dinner tested positive for COVD-19. They were also the ones hosting and, thankfully, no one has severe symptoms.
For a second year, the magic of Christmas was stolen from us.
There were no gifts to open. No goofy hats for silly photos. And worst of all, no quality family time after nearly two years of being apart.
And we weren’t alone.
There were many variations of that same story across our country and our state this year, just judging on my own social circle and social media. Several were sick with the virus and others had tales of their family gatherings being torpedoed by the pandemic, as well.
“Feeling both bummed out and lucky. Bummed that I’m not able to spend Christmas with my family and friends, but feeling lucky I’m vaxxed,” one Facebook friend wrote.
“It’s a COVID quarantine Christmas for Billy this year. Guess I’ve been…naughty. Merry Christmas!!!!” wrote another.
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Even Sen. Chris Coons got in on the act.
“Like millions of other families, it seems we’ll also be wrestling with another holiday spent on Zoom and cancelled plans for travel or gathering,” he wrote on Christmas Eve after testing positive himself.
With the highly transmissible omicron variant ripping through the region, Delaware has been hit especially hard, recently breaking records for the most new daily cases.
That’s right. There are more cases now than ever with officials recording 1,554 new cases on Christmas Eve, breaking the record that had been set just the day before.
Due to vaccinations, the hospitalization and death rates are thankfully well below our pre-vaccine numbers. (Delaware now has 76% of its population with at least one dose; 64% have two doses.)
But the flip side of the coin is that 24% of our First State family, friends and neighbors haven’t been vaccinated, not only making them more likely to be hospitalized or worse, but also giving the virus room to run.
“If you take the vaccine, you’re protected. The results of the vaccine are very good. And if you do get [COVID-19], it’s a very minor form,” former President Donald Trump told a Daily Caller interviewer last week as new cases began to skyrocket, breaking national case records. “The vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind.”
Once the vaccines rolled out earlier this year, hope reigned. A sense of a somewhat-normal life returned. We reclaimed our summers, went to ball games and let loose at concerts.
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After getting that taste, it’s hard not to be discouraged these days, especially if you saw your long-awaited Christmas family plans implode.
Last winter, I wrote a column about how my family canceled Thanksgiving to be careful, only for me to test positive on the actual holiday. I wrote about the relief I felt that we made the right decision and I didn’t spread it to loved ones.
The column concluded with these words: “Even after the nightmare that was 2020, there’s still so much to be grateful for in this world, especially with vaccines rolling out. Be safe and hang in there. We have a lot to celebrate next year.”
To be honest, I’m not that hopeful these days. It seems we can’t unite as Americans to beat back a pandemic and that’s just sad.
These are some of the thoughts I had as I spent Christmas alone at home in Wilmington.
I would have gone to my local watering hole, which always hosts raucous Christmas night celebrations, but even though I’m vaccinated and boosted, I stayed in. Sure, I was spooked by how many new cases are springing up around me, but I also skipped because I have surgery scheduled to repair a broken leg and damaged tendons on Jan. 5.
If I caught the coronavirus over a beer, my surgery would have to be pushed back and it’s already been four months since I took a nasty fall.
So I stayed in, watched “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and opened the one gift that arrived at my door, courtesy of Amazon and HSA Santa: the rolling knee scooter that I’ll be using to get around the next two months.
Every Christmas is memorable. This one was a doozy.
Have a story idea? Contact Ryan Cormier of The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormierdelawareonline) and Twitter (@ryancormier).
