In a pre-pandemic world, I often would cap off my week with a happy hour with either colleagues or some of my college friends in Philly. Whether meeting at our favorite center city spot or convening on a friend's rooftop deck we would get together, catch up, and cheers to another work week complete.
In March 2020, the traditional happy hour went on hiatus and virtual happy hours popped up on our outlook calendars. Virtual happy hours were welcomed and served as an outlet to connect with friends and family during the lockdown. Now a year later, some find the virtual happy hours to be fatiguing but I still look forward to my virtual happy hour with three of my college girlfriends.
A silver lining for me this past year has been monthly happy hours over FaceTime with three of my college girlfriends. We all live in different cities so in normal circumstances we would only see each other once or twice a year usually at Homecoming at our alma mater and then perhaps again over the summer. The girls live in NYC, Denver, Maine, and I'm in Philly so meeting up on FaceTime .. which started out as biweekly then moved to monthly was a real treat! For some reason sipping an Aperol Spritz in my parent's living room while on FaceTime with my gal pals proved to provide some normalcy in the pandemic world.
Further, family zoom calls have now made their introduction to my family's holiday celebrations. I have a very tight-knit immediate family and a larger extended family so hosting Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter at my family's house was always something to look forward to. Though like many the last year shook up our traditions. However, a silver lining was getting everyone on a zoom call over Christmas and Easter. My family is spread out across the country from Philadelphia to NYC to DE to Portland, OR, and beyond. Over Christmas, I scheduled a zoom call for my dad and his three siblings and it was great to see them all on camera and catch up. Over Easter, my cousin arranged a zoom call with family I had not seen in years, and my 95-year old grandmother gleefully enjoyed connecting with some of her grandchildren and meeting a great-grandchild born during the pandemic. Though zoom has limitations it was great to connect with family and have some connection during the holidays.
C'est la vie.
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