It looks like the holiday season will be a bit different this year. With a year filled with zoom calls, physical distancing, and a truly new way of living, I actually feel well equipped for a virtual holiday season – although I of course would love to see family and friends in person (hopefully soon!).
If you’re wondering how you can celebrate the holidays this year with your loved ones, virtually, keep on reading.
Make dinner, together
If you’re missing your friends and family, a great way to catch up this season is by doing a virtual cooking session together – pick a seasonal recipe, grab your ingredients, and head over to Zoom to make dinner together, then enjoy. I recently did this with my sister who lives in Victoria and we had a blast making dinner together online, then unwinding and enjoying our meals as we caught up.
This is also a fun idea for Christmas dinners – I would suggest making your own small dinner, then meeting up on Zoom to enjoy your Christmas meal with your friends and family. Because this will be a virtual event however, you will need to send potential attendees a meeting room link. While standard emailed URLs are easy to overlook, a colourful digital invitation grabs your friends’ and families attention and builds anticipation! You can use Canva to design bright and festive virtual holiday event invitations to send out. Here’s an example:
Let Joeys plan & execute your virtual dinner event
Don’t feel like cooking? Order your dishes from JOEY Restaurants, they’ll work with you in planning your virtual dinner experience! You can choose from any of their most popular entrée options that come as a three course meal. They promise they are as good reheated in your home (with their reheating instructions) as they are in the restaurant. Vegetarian and vegan options are also available.
Photo: JOEY Restaurants
All you need to do is provide them with the email addresses for your guests. They will receive an e-order form to make their menu selections, select a delivery window and provide their delivery/contact information. On the day of the event, your guests will receive their meal kit with reheat instructions (and wine pairings if applicable) at their doorstep. Doesn’t that sound fantastic? Click here to start planning.
Virtual Holiday Party
Another great way to enjoy your time with friends and family is by taking advantage of Virtual Holiday Party. Virtual Holiday Party is a series of games and activities meant to celebrate the holidays and bring cheer and joy to your home.
Photo: Virtual Holiday Party
The activities during this session include Virtual Holiday Trivia, Ugliest Sweater Design Challenge, Out Humbug the Humbug, and a Snowball Fight.
The standard holiday party is 90 minutes, and fully facilitated over a secure video conference line that they provide. Most events have both an energetic host to keep your people engaged, and a co-host to manage all of the technical aspects. Their goal is to make sure this is the best virtual holiday celebration you ever had! This is also a great option for those of you who have had to cancel your team holiday events!!
Virtual holiday happy hour
Host a virtual holiday happy hour with friends and family!
This is a very fun experience for everyone where you can all enjoy holiday cocktails from the comfort of your homes, sip on coffee and eggnog for example, play some games virtually, and catch up! Who said staying home had to be boring? This holiday season, let’s make the best of what we have!
I hope these tips on celebrating the holidays virtually were helpful. Although this year looks very different than years before, getting together even if it’s on a Zoom call or a FaceTime session will make a real difference.
P.S. If you haven’t created a Zoom account yet, now is definitely the time!
Happy holidays, stay safe!