Senior Moments: We'll all be home for Christmas

With Thanksgiving all wrapped up and the Christmas and holiday season fast approaching, most high school seniors are facing a harsh truth — our last normal Christmas at home has already passed. In years past, Christmas was a two-and-a-half week ordeal, with extended family gatherings, wish lists with 20 items, baking cookies with cousins, singing Christmas songs with distant relatives I barely recognize, driving around to marvel at the pretty lights and reuniting with everyone in my life to wish them, “Happy holidays, Merry Christmas!”

But unfortunately this year, next to none of that can happen. This year, we have to keep our family and our neighbors safe, and that means celebrating responsibly. I can’t go to five different family Christmas gatherings, each with a different part of the family. I can’t see my cousins who live in areas that are going into lockdown again. I can’t throw my arms around my distant relatives and sing loudly. And I hate to be even a little bit sad about Christmas, but I know everyone my age is this year, because we can’t carry on with our traditions during our last year living at home. This year, we will spend Christmas break finalizing college plans, making phone calls to everyone we can’t see and lounging around at home. This year, we’ll all be home for Christmas.

We’ll be home, but we won’t be home, with all of our families and friends. So here we are again, facing challenge after challenge, even as the holidays approach, yet somehow staying positive and hopeful. And I don’t just mean high school kids — I mean everyone. Because what else can we do? We have to stay optimistic and united, even when we’re apart.

This year, our community is our family. I’m serious in saying we have to keep lifting each other up; let’s do our best to spread as much happiness as we can this year, to support each other. Hang up all your Christmas lights and decorations for your neighbors to see, so little kids get excited when they drive by. Bake cookies and enjoy your handiwork for yourself because no one else can. Send your loved ones presents even if you won’t be able to watch them tear through the wrapping paper. Call your friends and relatives, video-chat with them, surround the people you care about with love and good cheer, even if through a screen. This Christmas is still going to feel like Christmas, and it’s up to us, you, your neighbors, to make it so.

Us high school seniors want to experience this as our last childhood Christmas, so to speak, even if it’s incredibly different, and I’m sure you also want to celebrate this year. We wish we could hold hands with all the world, but please don’t let our current situation stop you from celebrating merrily, because it surely isn’t stopping my peers or me. For goodness’ sake, be happy this Christmas, because it’s the only thing we can do. This holiday season is going to be strange and entirely new, but it won’t be lonely. Not if we can help it.