Month: December 2020

Pandemic Pessimism

Hey, sorry about the New Year’s Eve party post. I wrote that back in January, same with the Halloween post. I was just trying to get some work done ahead of time for periods when I’m usually really busy. Please make sure you don’t host super-spreader events!

A closed Cambridge, MA playground, wrapped in excessive caution tape. Early in the pandemic, the playgrounds were closed to prevent kids spreading Covid-19 among each other.
April 2020, right after they closed the playgrounds.

Alas, the pandemic came, and turned all our lives upside down. I stopped homeschooling and stopped keeping up with this blog. Basically it’s been one long nervous breakdown that gets more or less intense depending on the stressors.

According to an article I read recently, 37,000 students left the public schools in Massachusetts this school year. Anyone on homeschool groups could see the the tidal wave of families that joined the homeschooling community. Alas, in this like everything else, I find myself moving contrarywise. For so many, public school at home didn’t work. For me, pandemic meant I couldn’t cope with homeschooling at home. Our flavor of homeschooling was predominantly about being out of the house.

Hopefully the coming of the vaccine means life will get back to some sense of normalcy. For now, it feels like it will never end.

5 homemade cloth masks, fanned out on a table, all made from the same peach-colored fabric with palm trees and poodles on it. The ear bands are navy, fold-over-elastic.
Wear a mask, sneeze and cough into your elbow, wash your hands, drive safely, share, take turns, be a decent human being!

Hosting a Family New Year’s Eve Party

Since having kids, I suddenly became aware that there aren’t that many public events for families to celebrate New Year’s Eve. We hosted our first Kids NYE party in 2010, and there are admittedly more public events for families, such as the Boston Children’s Museum’s Noon Year.

The kids were very young at our first party. We lived in a much bigger space then and set up the kitchen with a cardboard play house that the kids could color and play in, and a station for making masks (paper plates and markers) and noisemakers (toilet roll tubes closed off with paper and rubber bands and filled with dried beans). We had mini pizzas for all, and I tried to make “bubbly” jell-o but failed. It still tasted good, but there were no suspended bubbles. (There’s a reason you can’t easily find recipes for this anymore…it doesn’t work). We put Shaun the Sheep on low on the TV for kids who didn’t want to run around, and toward the end of the party (around 7 pm), we had a countdown and jumped on bubble wrap for some indoor fireworks.

As the kids got older, subsequent parties included fancier mask making supplies…paper plates, sparkly yarn, craft feathers and sequins. We wrote our wishes for the new year and made a garland. We moved the start time to 7pm and served mostly deserts and finger food like chips and dip and cut veggies. Netflix used to have some NYE countdown clips from several kids tv shows, I’m not sure if they still do that, but we used one to add pizazz to our countdown to bubble wrap jumping! That activity is a hit year after year.

We now live in a very tiny apartment and I don’t know if we’ll ever host a New Year’s Eve party here. But if you have even a little room, a family New Year’s Eve party is a wonderful and low-key way to celebrate safely with your kids and friends. Keep it simple and it won’t be expensive. Get the big-bubble wrap for more impressive pops, and the small-bubble wrap if you want a less intense experience.