Family gatherings, holiday shows and more are on our wish list. Can Santa deliver?
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Will vaccines allow us to celebrate a more normal holiday season this year?
Many children have access to vaccines and holiday traditions are back on the calendar. Does that mean we’re all clear for a merry (and safe) Christmas? Read The News & Observer’s special report and find our ultimate guide to Triangle holiday events.
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Duane Reaugh feels hopeful about the holidays this year.
Reaugh spends most of his December days with children. He wears an oversized red coat, shiny black boots and a floppy, fuzzy hat with a white pom-pom.
He does magic tricks, teaches kids to be kind to those around them and asks them one special question: “What do you want for Christmas this year?”
Known this time of year as “Santa Duane,” Reaugh is the president of Triangle Santa Buddies.
And he knows exactly what he wants for Christmas: to see vaccine Band-Aids on children’s arms and to know that the other Santas — and retail employees, postal workers and health care staff who work long hours throughout the holiday season — can do their jobs safely.
“I hope to see a good number of vaccinated children,” Reaugh said.
More kids are vaccinated
Knowing many children will be vaccinated in time for Christmas this year is giving a lot of people hope for the holidays.
Children ages 5 to 11 became vaccine eligible in early November, and the latest numbers show that 60% of North Carolina’s eligible population has received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine (56% are fully vaccinated). Some children are still waiting for their first-dose appointment, while others are close to becoming fully vaccinated.
Last year, those celebrating end-of-year religious holidays largely had to do so behind a webcam. But now, many faith leaders are organizing their in-person plans. Holiday parades and celebrations are returning to towns across the Triangle, and performances that were canceled last year are back on.
“It’ll be a lot better than last year. A lot of Santas had to take the year off for their safety,” Reaugh said, noting that most are over 65 and have at least one underlying health condition. One local Santa in the Triangle Santa Buddies group died from COVID in the past year, Reaugh said, and another was very ill with COVID but survived.
Can we safely gather this year?
Whether it’s a family gathering or attending a more public holiday celebration, vaccines have put us in a better situation this year.
“This year, compared to last year, we have some tremendous benefits as we head into holiday gatherings,” Dr. Emily Sickbert-Bennett, the director of UNC Medical Center Infection Prevention, told The News & Observer.
“In particular, vaccines are now readily available for individuals aged 5 and up, and they are extremely effective at preventing COVID severe disease, hospitalization and death,” she said.
The week before Thanksgiving, the number of hospitalizations from COVID were still over 1,000 people in North Carolina, with more than 2,000 new cases reported each day. The COVID infection rate the week before Thanksgiving was at 5%, which is encouraging. Health officials say 5% or lower is the target rate to slow the spread of the virus.
But the numbers clearly show that the virus is still a danger, and we should remain vigilant.
Here are some strategies to make any gathering safer during COVID.
▪ Get vaccinated.
▪ Encourage family, friends and co-workers to get vaccinated.
▪ Limit the number of people at a gathering.
▪ Limit the amount of time spent together.
▪ Gather outdoors (instead of indoors) when possible.
▪ Wear masks indoors and in crowded outdoor settings.
▪ Stay distant from others when unmasked.
Sickbert-Bennett encourages everyone to “be honest with yourself and flexible with your holiday plans” so you can re-evaluate and distance yourself from others if you feel unwell.
And remember that COVID symptoms present themselves in many forms, and you should consider staying home — even if you’re sick with an illness besides COVID — to avoid spreading your illness to others at a holiday gathering.
Most, but not all, Triangle holiday traditions return
Not everything is back this year.
In late October, the city of Raleigh’s Holiday Express got canceled for the second year in a row. It’s one of Raleigh’s most popular wintertime activities. While the event was canceled last year due to COVID concerns, this year’s shutdown was caused by inadequate staffing.
“Unfortunately, we are not at a staffing level this year to provide our guests with an exceptional experience,” a press release stated. “We are very disappointed and know that our community will be too. This is an event we look forward to every year.”
The annual Holiday Express normally draws thousands of children and their families for train rides, holiday lights, carousel rides and a chance to meet Santa at Pullen Park.
But lots of popular in-person performances — like the Carolina Ballet “Nutcracker,” Ira David Wood III’s annual “A Christmas Carol” musical and The Raleigh Ringers’ holiday concerts — are back this year following either a canceled or live-streamed 2020 holiday season.
Here’s what else we can look forward to.
▪ Most Triangle towns have scheduled holiday parades for this year after canceling them last year. Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill-Carrboro, Cary, Clayton, Garner, Fuquay-Varina, Knightdale and Selma are among the towns holding in-person parades.
▪ Cary’s 26th annual Kwanzaa celebration is in-person this year after a virtual 2020 celebration, but the Black Vendor Market has been canceled.
▪ The Historic Oakwood Candlelight Tour, a North Carolina staple that’s celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, is resuming in-person house tours. Historic Oakwood offered a walking tour in 2020.
▪ First Night Raleigh, the annual New Year’s Eve celebration featuring the Acorn Drop, was attended in cars last year as a drive-through light show. Attendees this year can gather to ring in the New Year with art installations, live music and more.
Religious communities’ celebrations
Many religious communities are also gathering in-person for the December holidays, following a largely worship-from-home experience in 2020.
Some groups have already celebrated.
Earlier this month, Hindus at the Hindu Society of North Carolina in Morrisville celebrated Diwali, and Sikhs at the Sikh Gurudwara of North Carolina in Durham celebrated Gurta-Gaddi Purab of Guru Granth Sahib Ji, a celebration of when Guru Granth Sahib Ji was officially given the “Guru” title, on Oct. 20. While the Sikh Gurudwara cut back on its lungar (Punjabi for “free kitchen”), some members gathered in person to celebrate. The Hindu Society checked vaccination cards to safely pack the house of worship for singing, dancing, candle-lighting and sharing meals.
Here’s a look at religious groups celebrating December holidays. This is not intended to be a complete list of services being offered.
Catholicism
Open-to-all Midnight Mass will be back on Christmas Eve in parishes like St. Michael the Archangel Church in Cary and St. Thomas More in Chapel Hill. Services will still be live-streamed (as they were last year), but attendees don’t have to reserve their spot in advance, as they’ve needed to do for months.
“Our number of volunteers actually increased during the pandemic,” said St. Michael’s Deacon Mark Westrick. “We have more people willing to come out, and the number of people asking for help has increased, too. The pandemic helped us connect and cooperate with more groups, too, so now we can send people outside of our community to organizations that are better suited for their needs.”
St. Thomas More will also hold a “Longest Night” service on Dec. 21 geared toward those who experience pain around the holiday season, said the Rev. Scott E. McCue. This live-streamed service began last year.
Immaculate Conception in Durham will hold Christmas services for Spanish, Polish and Filipino communities this season, said Pastor Jacek Orzechowski. St. Thomas More also holds many of their services in Spanish.
Christianity
Both New Hope Baptist Church in Raleigh and Saint Francis United Methodist Church in Cary had to adjust their live Nativity events last year, but the free events will both resume as normal this year.
At New Hope Baptist, the “Nativity walk” allowed attendees to remain spaced out and enjoy portions of the Nativity story with live animals and re-enactments, said Pastor Randy Carter.
The drive-through live Nativity event at Saint Francis United Methodist last year also included “animal cams” so attendees could experience the event from home, said the Rev. Anne Ahl, the church’s lead pastor.
Both churches — like most in our area — will have in-person and live-streamed components to their Christmas services this year. Unlike in 2020, attendees don’t need to sign up in advance to secure their spot.
The River Church in Durham will hold a 10 p.m. service on Christmas Eve that will finish at midnight, dipping into Christmas Day. And Asbury Church in Raleigh has five Christmas Eve services from which you can choose.
“We’re getting a little creative this year, since we’ll be back on Sunday for regular worship,” said Senior Pastor Ronald L. Godbee. “You can’t have Christmas without being in church, so we wanted to come up with a unique way to accomplish giving people the day with their families and friends, too.”
Judaism
“The message of the Hanukkah, with candles, is both internal and external. It’s a celebration of hope for the Jewish people during a time of darkness and difficulty,” said Rabbi Daniel Greyber of Beth El Synagogue in Durham.
“It reminds us of the continued existence of light in dark times. This message has continued to be relevant and meaningful in people’s lives after almost two years that have felt very, very dark.”
Usually, Chapel Hill’s Kehillah Synagogue’s congregants bring their own menorah to be placed in the foyer; that way the light can shine for all who pass by to see.
For the past few years, Kehillah has had a large outdoor menorah, adding a community ritual to a largely online year and a half: Families last year were able to sign up to light a candle for each of the eight nights of Hanukkah, but celebrations were almost entirely done over Zoom.
“A large part of the High Holidays involves singing all together, so we did sing all together, but everyone had to be muted,” Feldman said with a laugh. “Zoom hasn’t figured out how to let everyone sing at the same time.”
In the few times Kehillah met in person over the past year and a half, congregants gathered “tailgate style,” grabbing a box of food and observing Shabbat from the trunks of their cars.
Hanukkah begins at sundown this year on Nov. 28. As of mid-November, the synagogue is open for all who are vaccinated. Congregants need to be vaccinated to attend in-person service, and children ineligible to be fully vaccinated can attend if they are wearing masks. Worshippers’ vaccination statuses aren’t checked, but the synagogue relies on an honor system.
“Protecting life is the highest value in Judaism,” Feldman said. “Higher than any other ritual observance.”
Ready to forget about Christmas 2020
Of the 61 Santas in the Triangle Santa Buddies group, 40 will be active this season for home visits, retail shops and holiday parties, Reaugh said. The rest are sitting out this year to keep themselves and their loved ones safe.
Last year, some experimented with video call visits, allowing one Spanish-speaking Santa to connect with Hispanic communities throughout the state. Some visited children solely via video call, but many took the year off.
Reaugh was a working Santa last year. He got vaccinated in September 2020 as one of 40,000 people in Pfizer’s clinical trial. He paid extra to know whether he got a placebo or the real vaccine. His was real, and he was the only Santa — and one of the very few people around Christmastime last year — to be fully vaccinated.
If he hadn’t been, he would have taken the year off, too. He recently received his booster shot.
Reaugh said there’s no mandatory vaccination or testing requirement for the Santas in his group and that they are all looking out for the safety of the children.
“Believe me, everyone wants to make sure their Santa is vaccinated,” he said.
“Last year, parents would want photos with their children with masks on and with masks off,” Reaugh said.
“The photos with masks were the ones they put on social media, so other people wouldn’t yell at them. The ones without masks they would keep, because they never want to remember 2020.”
This story was originally published November 24, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect the most current information on local towns holding in-person Christmas parades this year.
