Holiday Entertaining This Year Is Complicated. Here’s Help

By: Kate Krader

Updated on December 24, 6:13 PM EST

What You Need To Know

For some people, the holidays haven’t come soon enough, a way to mark the end of the most traumatizing year in memory and to kick it out the door.

For others, the celebrations will look like most days in 2020: Spent at home, separated from loved ones by distance and screens.
As the world commemorates everything from Hanukkah to Christmas and Kwanzaa, the question remains: what’s the best, most intimate way to participate in high party season without normal resources like restaurants, clubs and friends and family to toast with in person and not virtually.

Yet people are still finding ways to celebrate, even if the gatherings are tiny compared to years past. Christmas trees purchases started earlier then ever this year; in India, Diwali sales were up over 10% during the one month festival season. And in the U.K. the rush to stock up on Christmas pudding started in late September.

For the time being, we will continue to operate in a space that mirrors the world of cable, with a different channel for every taste and comfort level. The trick will be finding yours.

And look forward to 2021: Everyone from economists to journalists is saying that the new year will usher in an era that evokes the Roaring Twenties. Get ready for it.

Key Coverage

By The Numbers

8.1% The average increase in cost of a Christmas dinner that features turkey or pork, compared to 2019.
48% The percentage of Americans who plan to order restaurant takeout to support small business during the holidays.
$103 million The amount that prosecco sales are up compared to 2019, representing a 27% change.

Why It Matters

If there’s one way people can retain a sense of normalcy this holiday season, it’s through cooking. After all, they’ve been perfecting that skill since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

There will be a range of foods designed for showing off on a holiday Zoom party, from the kind of elaborate cake that would make a Great British Bake Off contestant proud to at-home snacks that would dominate catered holiday parties in ordinary times. A simple, soul-soothing soup or pasta might make the perfect party for one. Whether banana bread—or chocolate banana cookies—becomes the gift of the season remains to be seen.

Significant dishes, holiday oriented or not, can symbolize a lot for people who have been deprived of experiences this year. Signature provisions from a beloved city might be the ticket to “traveling,” despite not being able to do it in person. For those who miss celebrating at a wish-list restaurant, many such establishments are bringing their food to fans in the form of high-ticket meal kits. Others might go off-script to start new, scaled down traditions: forgoing turkeys for such other birds as duck—or, even less conventionally, lobster.

The places we celebrate are changing, too. Restaurants are turning empty hotel suites into private dining rooms. The outdoor parties continue, even as temperatures plummet. Celebrants are taking advantage of solutions such as fire pits and backyard tents, with food served in cast-iron pans and hot toddies in hand.

We encourage everyone to embrace this moment, challenging as it is. Good cheer in a pandemic may be complicated, but it’s not impossible. It just depends how you look at it.

Bloomberg

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F.D. Flam