Baby’s first COVID Christmas

CAPE BRETON – No mall Santa, no fire halls handing out treat bags, cancelled parades, no more craft shows, family gatherings stop at ten and no family from out-of-province.

What used to be a season of gathering with loved ones and not being afraid to do a day of shopping in your local mall has now turned into deciding what Christmas-themed mask to wear while getting groceries.

Amber Tapley lives in Sydney, Nova Scotia with her two kids, nine-year-old Elijah and three-year-old Eldar. She’s originally from New Brunswick where most of her family still lives. She normally hosts a Christmas potluck for her family every year but this year, that can’t happen.

“We’re just going to keep it small and simple and focus on the things that matter,” said Tapley.

Her eldest child is in school so he’s been dealing with COVID-19 restrictions there, but she said she’s talked to both children about COVID-19 and how it will impact Christmas.

Tapley said Elijah knows the family a bit better than Eldar so he’s missing that family connection that comes at Christmastime.

She said he wishes he could see his cousins again.

“They know that we’ll do video chats and do the best we can,” said Tapley.

Jasmine Beye also said she thinks Christmas will be different this year. Her sons Nathaniel, 4, and Drew, who’s seven months, don’t have much of an understanding when it comes to why Christmas will be lacking certain events. She said it’s been tricky figuring out how much to talk to Nathaniel about.

“We just haven’t actually brought it up,” said Beye.

Beye lives in Point Edward, Nova Scotia and she has family in Halifax, British Columbia, Quebec and the United States. But she said even if her family could do non-essential travel and come home for Christmas, there’s still a limit of 10 people indoors at a time.

“I guess it’ll be way smaller,” said Beye. “That’s going to be sad.”

Tapley said that despite it being loud and overwhelming raising two kids during a pandemic, there were some nice times. In March and April when she wasn’t going out much, they spent a lot of time indoors watching movies and doing fun activities.

“So sometimes were great,” she said. “And other times, it was a lot.”

The holiday season isn’t going to be entirely different, said Tapley. She said as long as things stay open, it should be good because she’s already used to shopping locally anyway. Four new cases surfaced in the Eastern Nova Scotia zone within the last few days, but Cape Breton remains in the yellow zone of the COVID-19 Recovery Plan. Hants County and Halifax County are the only Nova Scotia locations not in yellow.

“It hasn’t really changed so much for us this year. It’s just going to be a much smaller scale,” said Tapley.

She said although she’s sad her whole family can’t be together for the holidays; she’s going to try to enjoy Christmas with her kids.

“[We’ll be] seeing the people that are closest to us and eating good food and taking it easy.”