Great Ways to be Flexible for a Covid Christmas

“Are we going to have Christmas at your house, grandma?” Miss T asked. I hope so, I replied guardedly.

In my mind, the answer was yes, but I didn’t want to raise her hopes since we were navigating another Covid Christmas.

The answer, as it turned out, is no. One of our family members tested positive for breakthrough Covid on Sunday. The most important thing is, symptoms have been mild, and happily, we learned last night that the rest of the family tested negative.

Our Christmas Tradition

Our normal custom is to gather for Christmas Eve dinner at our house, which is a fancy dinner when the kids get dressed up. My greatest joy is designing a festive table setting.

On Christmas Day, the family returns for breakfast, we open presents together, and they stay all day through dinner.

Last year our plans were upended when we encountered our first Covid Christmas, so we did a Christmas Eve zoom gathering. The next day, we watched the kids open their presents remotely.

Facing another unsettled Christmas again this year, we have been putting our creative minds together to salvage our original plans. Since the parents maintain a positive and constructive attitude, the grandkids are taking any disappointments in stride.

Here are some ways we are revising our plans.

The Nutcracker Event

Since they would be missing the performance of the Nutcracker at the Opera House this year, the kids saw their Nutcracker ballet in the garage, using a projector and a screen my son had invested in a few months ago. He had bought the equipment so we could all watch movies together safely outdoors if the Covid situation worsened. With popcorn and hot cocoa, the kids enjoyed their own private showing.

Christmas Cookie Bake

I was planning on doing a Christmas cookie bake with the kids during their winter break. Since that was out, I suggested that I could make the dough and icing for them. It turned out that wasn’t going to work, either, because a single parent, working full-time from home, couldn’t also keep an eye on a hot oven.

So, Plan C: Make and bake the cookies, and send them with the decorating ingredients. To keep it simple for the parent, I provided everything: baked cookies, colored icing, icing spreaders (one small offset spatula and one regular), white icing in a piping bag, and various sprinkles.

Children will be more excited and motivated if all the elements are packaged attractively. So, I used a basket lined with a red plaid napkin, filled the basket with the cookie fixings, and then wrapped it with cellophane and a red ribbon. A sprig of Christmas tree greens from the Christmas tree lot added a festive touch.

The Snowman Cookies

As a treat, I sent along a snowman cookie for each child. This is a variation of the Super Simple Butter Cookie recipe I posted a few weeks ago.

To turn these slice-and-bake cookies into snowmen, frost them with white Lemon Royal Icing and pipe black icing dots (made by coloring some of the icing with Wilton black icing color) for the eyes and mouth. A sliver of orange gumdrop makes the nose.

I learned by trial and error that it’s best to start by piping the dots for the mouth first, then doing the eyes, for better positioning. Otherwise, it’s hard to get the mouth and eyes lined up properly.

Package each cookie in a food-safe cellophane bag; tie with ribbon and a spring of pine.

The Christmas Cookie Recipes

Here are the recipes I used, which have become among my favorites for the holidays:

• Taste of Home‘s Chocolate Cutout Cookies; recipe by Nancy Murphy. This recipe makes an easy-to-handle dough. This cookie’s brown color mimics gingerbread, but if no one is your family likes gingerbread, these are a more palatable option.

• Tara Teaspoon‘s Santa Face Sugar Cookies; I like how easy it is to manipulate the dough. I don’t make the Santa faces but use the dough to cut my own shapes. Upon chilling, the dough may be hard to roll, initially. You can break it up into smaller pieces, set the pieces close together, then roll to combine them into one piece.

• Lemon Royal Icing also from Tara Teaspoon; I’m not fond of sweet, sugary icing. The lemon juice in this recipe gives the icing a wonderful tartness to brighten the flavor. It dries shiny and hard. The perfect cookie icing. You can halve the recipe if you aren’t baking too many cookies. To divide 1/3 cup of the lemon juice in half, use 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons.

The Christmas Cookie Activity

The children had fun decorating their cookies and needed no supervision, since the cookies were pre-baked and all the tools and ingredients they would need were provided for them in one basket.

At eight, Miss T is an experienced cookie baker and decorator, who could guide and help her little brother. The decorating provided an hour of entertainment and there are more cookies to decorate when they are ready to do another round.

Christmas Eve Dinner after Christmas

After some discussion, we decided to hold our Christmas Eve dinner after the quarantine period, with everyone taking a rapid test just before our get-together.

We’ll keep the family’s gifts under the tree and they will open them before dinner. At the start of the pandemic last year, we bought an artificial tree for the first time. Although reluctant to abandon the idea of a real tree, it seemed more convenient, not to have to rely on our sons to haul a 10-foot Noble Fir into the house each year. This year, with our postponed dinner, we’re glad to have the fake tree, which will not dry out or brown.

I’ll do my fancy table setting–I had already started on the snowflake-themed idea, anyway. And the kids will come dressed up in their Christmas outfits.

Each family will do its own, scaled-back menu for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and I plan to provide a few extra dishes to send over. We’ll see how it goes.

Call Me Grandma on Vacation

Call Me Grandma will be on vacation for the next three weeks, returning on Wednesday, January 12, with more ways to nurture and educate kids through fun, food, and craft ideas.

Miss T, Little N, and I wish you the happiest of holidays. Thanks for visiting!

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