ROME (AP) – Families who usually gather for Christmas during a hearty and persistent meal held apart on Friday, services were changed online and gift exchanges were discreet in one of the most unusual holiday seasons and moderate in recent decades.
The coronavirus left almost no one affected.
Patricia Hager, 60, delivered homemade candy rolls for breakfast to family and friends in Bismarck, North Dakota, a state that was not affected until later in the pandemic, but suffered a severe blow. It seemed like every time I opened the door these holidays, someone had left smoked salmon, nuts baskets or cookies.
“This year Christmas love is expressed at the door,” he said. “I’m glad people will probably be with us next year with the vaccines. I can give up anything for that. “
With a child to beat in February, Song Ju-hyeon of Paju, South Korea, near Seoul, said the house is the only place where she feels safe. The government reported 1,241 new cases on Friday, a new daily record for the country.
“It doesn’t look like a Christmas anyway, they don’t play carols on the street,” he said.
“It’s Christmask,” the Daily Nation reported in Kenya, where the rise in cases caused doctors to end a brief Christmas strike. The celebrations were silenced in central East Africa, as the curfew prevented church vigils during the night.
Pope Francis delivered the Christmas blessing from 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 coronavirus restrictions for the holidays thwarted locals ’plans to go to the square.
Citing a cause for optimism, Francis said the development of COVID-19 vaccines shines “lights of hope” in the world. In a passionate appeal to leaders, companies and international organizations, he said they must ensure that those most vulnerable and in need of the pandemic are the first to receive the vaccine.
The bells rang around Bethlehem when the traditional birthplace of Jesus was celebrated. But the closure of Israel’s international airport to foreign tourists, along with Palestinian restrictions banning long-distance travel to areas administered by the Israeli-occupied West Bank, kept visitors away.
In Beijing, official churches abruptly canceled Mass after the Chinese capital was put on high alert after two confirmed cases of COVID-19 last week. Two new asymptomatic cases were reported on Friday.
With economies shrinking around the world, it wasn’t a year of lavish gifts. Robin Sypniewski, of Middlesex County, New Jersey, was twice removed from her workplace for lunch at school and now has reduced hours as her husband retires next week as a collector of garbage and his daughter fighting student debt.
Sypniewski, 58, bought pajamas from his daughter, compared to a diamond bracelet last Christmas. Her husband got a $ 20 plaque describing her Polish heritage, compared to a tablet from last year.
“The bills must be paid this month and next. With reduced hours, it’s hard, ”he said.
In Sao Paulo, Brazil, taxi driver Dennys Abreu, 56, drove through the big city overnight to cover the $ 300 monthly payment for his car, which he bought after losing a construction job. An estimated 14 million Brazilians are unemployed.
“All I can do is work as hard as I can, get it and wait for this damn virus to go away next year,” he said.
Meanwhile, religious services changed online. The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles celebrated five Masses in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, with a maximum attendance of 130 people, compared to a pre-pandemic capacity of about 3,000 people. All were broadcast live.
Chapel Hill Cross Chapel, North Carolina, had five services, but face-to-face attendance was limited to 25 people, compared to 2,000 before the pandemic. A Christmas Eve contest that is usually done in person was recorded and shown online.
“I must remember that Christians have been celebrating Christmas for hundreds of years in all sorts of circumstances,” said the Rev. Elizabeth Marie Melchionna, rector of the church. “Some of the external appearances are different and yet the essence remains the same. What has not changed is the essential longing and celebration for the love that is born for Christmas ”.
In Paris, members of the Notre Dame Cathedral choir sang in the church for the first time since the 2019 fire, wearing hard bars and protective clothing against construction conditions.
Mourning prevailed among the families of more than 1.7 million people worldwide killed by the virus and approximately 80 million people infected.
Margarita Reyes, 60, is one of four people in her home to catch the virus in Calexico, California, near the Mexican border. Her husband, 69, died three weeks later and her daughter, 35, has been in an oxygen device for five months. They were too sad to celebrate it in any way.
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. His son, a firefighter, was also exposed.
“The air came out of the balloon” without his children for Christmas, he said. A video chat was no substitute for watching movies in the same room with them and her husband.
Border closures and bottlenecks thwarted some plans. Thousands of drivers were trapped in their trucks in the English port of Dover, without the coronavirus tests France is demanding amid growing concern over a new, apparently more contagious virus variant. The British army and French firefighters were brought in to help speed up the tests and free food was distributed.
With Colombia closing its borders to prevent the spread of the virus, Venezuelan migrants were unable to return home on vacation. Yakelin Tamaure, a nurse who left Venezuela unfortunate two years ago, wanted to visit her mother, who is breastfeeding a broken foot.
“I try to send him money, but it’s not the same as being there,” he said.
But many took restrictions calmly. A pre-pandemic Christmas in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for 53-year-old Kristin Schrader meant organizing a big dinner with snacks for her visiting brother from Denver, her parents who live in the city, and friends who spend time there. . This year, she opted for a socially distant outing with her husband and 13-year-old daughter to see a man disguised as Santa Claus in a canoe by the icy Huron River with his dog. There was also a discreet fondue dinner on the agenda.
“It’s very hard for you all to be sitting in the same house causing a lot of excitement for us when we’re looking at each other for months and months,” he said.
The 70 residents of St. Peters, a nursing home in the northern Spanish city of El Astillero, held video chats or 30-minute tours with the family, separated by a Plexiglas wall.
“This terrible thing has come to us, so we have to accept it and treat it with patience,” said Mercedes Arejula, who met with her mother.
The nursing home only allowed one family member to enter. A granddaughter kissed from the 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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