Staying Together
My freshman year of college ended a lot differently than I had
expected. On March 8, 2020, I got an email around 10pm saying that I wouldn’t
have classes leading up to Spring break. I think myself and a lot of my peers
saw this coming. The Coronavirus had just been detected in Washington
state.
The coronavirus had been sitting in the back of my head for quite
some time at this point. The office I worked at on campus had been the main hub
for all talk Covid-19. Everyday I worked I heard all about Covid, the new
updates, and what Hofstra was planning to do. I couldn’t escape the topic even
if I tried.
Once home, my family and I realized how boring it is to be stuck
in the house all day everyday. Not only that, but my step family (who we didn’t
live with at the time) was an hour away so we didn’t see them much. Masks were
just becoming a thing and social distancing was starting to arise. There were a
lot of unknowns and we didn’t want to risk anything.
Soon after we decided to hunker down, I began planning fun events
for my whole family to partake in. These events happened once a week, where we
all got together for dinner and whatever I had planned. Our first dinner was
called “Family Costume Party.” I used the website Evite to create a fun
invitation and then sent it out to everyone in the family.
There was only one rule. You couldn’t buy anything for a
costume. Whatever you wanted to dress up as, you had to do it yourself. And let
me tell ya, I was not disappointed with the outcome. My parents dressed up as
Forrest Gump and Jenny, my sister as Squidward, my other sister as Elder Price
from the musical The Book of Mormon, and myself as that crazy girl from
the movie Finding Nemo. It was awesome.
Some other events we had were “Family Quiz Night”, “Lord of the
Rings”, “Tiger King Dinner”, and a “Tour of Italy.” For my sister’s birthday,
we had a The Office themed birthday party. Everyone dressed up as their
favorite character from The Office and added their own special
touches.
I captured pictures
from all of them to create a photo album at the end of the year. Looking back
on them now, I don’t see a family in the middle of a pandemic, I see my family,
all together, having fun.
