We spent Christmas in an unprecedented place: our house. Like many of you (I hope all of you), we scratched our travel plans on account of the pandemic that as of today has killed more than one in every thousand Americans. The end of December has involved travel by plane, train or automobile for me ever year since high school, but that streak finally ended.

I have to admit that it felt oddly calming to wrap up my shopping on the evening of Dec. 23, the latest day I’ve headed out of town, and realize I could take my time browsing at the Downtown Holiday Market instead of worrying about having to pack once I got home. Between this immense simplification of holiday logistics and the absence of the usual barrage of CES PR pitches, it’s been a less stressful season.

Celebrating Christmas at home also allowed our cat to be part of the festivities. It turns out that Abel likes playing with wrapping paper and ribbons, so this worked out well for him and for us.

Plus, we had a few snow flurries, so the day met the technical definition of a white Christmas.

The downside is that it’s now been more than 13 months since I’ve seen my mom and my brother, and it’s been almost as long since my wife saw her parents and her sister. FaceTime and phone calls have been poor substitutes for hugs.

I would very much like to think that by the end of March, enough people will have been vaccinated to have the pandemic rapidly receding and family travel plausible again. But I’ve been wrong so many times in my pandemic forecasts here before that I’m nervous even writing that hope now.