Christmas celebrations are a bit different this year for many on the Central Coast, but that's not stopping families from coming up with different ways to celebrate.
Families had to get creative this year to continue with their Christmas celebrations. For the Drexler family in Atascadero, a regular Christmas would consist of a big family reunion.
"We normally go to the Bay Area and visit all my aunts, uncles and cousins, and do a big dinner and exchange but we are not doing that this year,” Stephanie Drexler said.
Instead of the big family reunion in person, they decided to continue their yearly traditions online.
“We'll do a toast and go around the table, well around the zoom and say what we are thankful for, and then we fly balsa wood airplanes, and my sister mailed us our airplanes,” Drexler said.”
In Arroyo Grande, the Gilbert family also decided to switch things up this year.
"I have family all over the place. So I have one sister in Syracuse NY, one sister who lives in St. Ives in the UK, my uncle lives in Michigan, and so in the past, everybody has traveled to California,” Allison Gilbert said.
But this year family members said they didn't want to risk it.
"We planned a bunch of Zoom calls, we planned a happy hour a Christmas Eve happy hour. It'll be my uncle's first year in probably over 45 years that he hasn't been to California for Christmas so he's by himself so we wanted to make sure we got him in on the action,” Gilbert said.
Although this isn't the ideal Christmas for many, families like the Drexler's said it's all about adapting.
"You know you got to stay positive for the kids and try to make it as normal as possible for them so they look back on it with memories instead of being sad or angry,” Drexler said.
The Gilbert family said one thing they are most looking forward to next year, is traveling.
"I got a whole bunch of plane ticket credits so really looking forward to using those, but you never know what's going to happen. We didn't know this was going to happen this year it's different and maybe next year it'll be even more different,” Gilbert said.
