We try to leave our readers each week with editorial messages to advocate, encourage, enlighten and inform.
This week we’re torn between two messages: get out and support local businesses and stay home to protect vulnerable loved ones and health care workers.
Our holidays are coinciding with the peak of pandemic spread, which means we should hunker down with our immediate households at a time when we most want to see and hold our loved ones near.
We’re hearing of “Covid fatigue” and that families are willing to risk the virus to preserve holiday traditions. However, our Sanford Luverne doctors and staff are pleading with us to put those meetings on hold so as not to further strain their resources and workers.
At the same time, our hearts go out to our favorite bars and restaurants that play an important social function in our communities. They are the gathering places for groups of friends and they are the safe social havens for lonely folks seeking human connection they find with casual conversations across the bar.
So here we are in the 2020 holidays not being able to connect with people at local establishments and we can’t leave our own households (which is only one person in some homes) to connect with loved ones from afar.
What’s a community to do?
In Rock County we can rest assured our creative and progressive community leaders are working on ways to get us through.
For example, the Chamber is urging support of bars and restaurants through take-out orders with a fun contest to win gift cards. (See the graphic)
Which is a great idea in light of the fact that we won’t be gathering at crowded tables around 20-pound turkeys.
Let’s use our local restaurants to set our holiday tables and stuff our stockings with certificates (and mail as gifts). While we’re at it, let’s all think of the single-person households who could use a holiday gift of a meal.
The pandemic is putting a damper on so much holiday joy, but let’s all work together to get through this and make the most of the blessings we have.