5 Meaningful Ways to Create Togetherness When You're Apart

Photo by Dollar Gill on Unsplash

This has been the year of social distancing, of canceled travel plans and creative ways to use technology to stay connected. It’s also been a year of many difficult milestones—birthdays, anniversaries, vacations, Thanksgiving and other celebrations spent far away from the ones we love.

It’s not easy, and that difficulty is important to name and acknowledge. At the same time, there are little windows of opportunity popping open all over the place—opportunities to get creative about the ways we make meaning together, even when we’re not physically together.

Zoom and Facetime and other video chat platforms are great, but there are tons of other ways to connect, especially when it comes to holidays and celebrations that naturally engage all of our senses. Use music, recipes, movies or photos to recreate a memorable occasion.

Here are five fun ways to feel close to loved ones when you can’t be together:

Create a playlist.

Choose songs that remind you of each other or that make you feel grateful or celebratory. Share the playlist with everyone and agree to listen to it while you cook, eat or hang out in your separate homes. 🎶

Choose something you will all do at the same time.

Even if you can't be in the same space, decide on a common eating time. Slice the pie at 6 p.m. on the dot. Queue up a holiday movie at a specified showing time. (Bonus: Use an app like Teleparty to sync your movie viewing and allow for group chatting!) When you do this activity, take a moment to appreciate that your friends and family are doing the same thing. ⌚

Start a thankfulness round robin on a group text thread.

Have each person name something they are thankful for and invite the next family member to go. Include a photo for even more warm fuzzies. Or add another question prompt, like something you're looking forward to in 2021 or a recipe that reminds you of a beloved family member. 🙏🏻

Host a photo scavenger hunt.

Send out a prompt each hour (a pie, something you burned, dancing like a turkey) and invite everyone to reply with a photo or video. Have a tech-savvy relative? Ask them to edit the submissions into a fun video to share with the group. 📸

Send some love through the mail.

Sit down with the folks in your household and write notes to mail to loved ones. Tell them you're thankful for them on this holiday. 💌