ROME (AP) – Families who usually gather at Christmas for a hearty and prolonged meal celebrated on Friday, services have changed online and gift exchanges have been discreet in one of the most unusual and moderate holiday seasons in decades.
The coronavirus left almost no one unaffected.
Patricia Hager, 60, delivered homemade caramel buns for breakfast to family and friends in Bismarck, North Dakota, a state that was not reached until the end of the pandemic, but was hit hard. It seemed that every time she opened the door this holiday season, someone left smoked salmon, baskets of nuts or crackers.
“This year, the love of Christmas is expressed at the door,” she said. “I’m happy that people will probably be with us next year with the vaccines. I can give up anything for that. “
With a child due in February, Song Ju-hyeon from Paju, South Korea, near Seoul, said her home is the only place where she feels safe. The government registered 1,241 new cases on Friday, a new daily record for the country.
“It doesn’t feel like Christmas anyway, there are no Christmas carols playing in the streets,” she said.
“It’s Christmask,” said the Daily Nation newspaper in Kenya, where an increase in cases led doctors to end a brief strike on Christmas Eve. The celebrations were silenced in central East Africa, as the curfew prevented the church’s night vigils.
Pope Francis gave his Christmas blessing from inside the Vatican, breaking with his traditional speech from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to tens of thousands in St. Peter’s Square. Tourism in Italy has virtually disappeared and government restrictions on coronavirus for the holiday have thwarted any plan by residents to crowd in the square.
Citing a reason for optimism, Francis said that the development of COVID-19 vaccines shines “lights of hope” in the world. In a passionate appeal to international leaders, companies and organizations, he said they must ensure that the most vulnerable and needy in the pandemic are the first in line to receive the vaccine.
The bells rang around Bethlehem as the traditional birthplace of Jesus celebrated. But the closure of Israel’s international airport to foreign tourists, along with Palestinian restrictions that prohibit intercity travel in the areas they administer in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, have kept visitors at bay.
In Beijing, official churches abruptly canceled mass after China’s capital was placed on high alert after two confirmed cases of COVID-19 last week. Two new asymptomatic cases were reported Friday.
With economies staggering around the world, it was not a year of lavish gifts. Robin Sypniewski, from Middlesex County, New Jersey, has been released twice from her job serving school meals and is now on reduced hours, as her husband retires next week as a garbage collector and his daughter struggles with student debt.
Sypniewski, 58, bought his daughter pajamas, compared to a diamond bracelet last Christmas. Her husband received a $ 20 plaque describing his Polish heritage, compared to a tablet computer last year.
“The bills have to be paid this month and next. With reduced hours, it’s difficult, ”she said.
In São Paulo, Brazil, taxi driver Dennys Abreu, 56, sailed through the vast city at night to cover the $ 300 monthly payment for his car, which he bought after losing a job in construction. It is estimated that 14 million Brazilians are unemployed.
“All I can do is work as hard as I can, survive and hope that damn virus will disappear next year,” he said.
Meanwhile, religious services have changed online. The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles celebrated five masses in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, with a maximum audience of 130 people, compared to a pre-pandemic capacity of about 3,000. All were broadcast live.
The Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, had five services, but face-to-face assistance was limited to 25 people, compared with 2,000 before the pandemic. A Christmas Eve contest that is usually presented in person has been recorded and shown online.
“I must remember that Christians have celebrated Christmas for hundreds of years in all kinds of circumstances,” said the reverend Elizabeth Marie Melchionna, the church’s dean. “Some of the external appearances are different, but the essence remains the same. What hasn’t changed is that essential yearning and celebration of the love that is born at Christmas ”.
In Paris, members of the Notre Dame Cathedral choir sang inside the church for the first time since a 2019 fire, wearing helmets and protective clothing against building conditions.
Pain prevailed among families of more than 1.7 million people worldwide killed by the virus and around 80 million infected.
Margarita Reyes, 60, is among the four people who contracted the virus at her home in Calexico, California, near the Mexican border. Her 69-year-old husband died within three weeks, and her 35-year-old daughter was on an oxygen device for five months. They were too sad to celebrate anyway.
Suzanne Rose of Raleigh, North Carolina, delivered homemade spaghetti to the door of her quarantined daughter, a restaurant manager who was exposed to the virus at work. Her son, a fireman, was also exposed.
“The air came out of the balloon” without children at Christmas, she said. A video chat was no substitute for watching movies in the same room as they and their husband.
Border closures and bottlenecks frustrated some plans. Thousands of drivers were trapped in their trucks in the English port of Dover, without the coronavirus tests that France requires amid growing concern over a new, apparently more contagious variant of the virus. The British army and French firefighters were brought in to help speed up testing and free food was distributed.
With Colombia closing its borders to prevent the virus from spreading, Venezuelan migrants could not return home on vacation. Yakelin Tamaure, a nurse who left Venezuela in economic difficulties two years ago, wanted to visit her mother, who is taking care of a broken foot.
“I try to send money to her, but it’s not the same as being there,” she said.
But many accepted the restrictions calmly. A pre-pandemic Christmas in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for Kristin Schrader, 53, meant offering a big dinner with appetizers for her brother who visits Denver, his parents, who live in the city, and friends who show up. This year, she opted for a socially distant walk with her husband and 13-year-old daughter to watch a man dressed as Santa Claus in a canoe on the cold Huron River with his dog. A discreet fondue dinner was also on the agenda.
“It is very difficult when you are all sitting in the same house to gather a lot of emotion for the three of us when we are just looking at each other for months and months on end,” she said.
The 70 residents of St. Peters, a retirement home in the city of El Astillero, in northern Spain, held videoconferences or 30-minute visits with the family, separated by an acrylic wall.
“This terrible thing has come to us, so we must accept it and deal with it patiently,” said Mercedes Arejula, who met with her mother.
The nursing home allowed only one relative to enter. A granddaughter blew kisses from outside.
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Spagat reported from San Diego.
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AP correspondents contributed to this report from around the world.
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This story has been corrected to show that Suzanne Rose is from Raleigh, North Carolina, not Winston-Salem.
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