On the weekend of September 19th and 20th, my husband and I had a goodbye party in my parents backyard called the socially distant sayonara! We wanted to say goodbye in-person to a lot of people, since we will be gone the next 3 years, but wanted to do so in a way to minimize the possibility of spreading COVID.
For the record - I do not condone hanging out in large crowds, attending large events, or want you to have your own party. Our decision was made based on the fact that we will be gone for several years in Japan.
For a lot of people, we scheduled individual time with them leading to our departure, where we were 6 ft apart and there was no contact. For the weekend of the sayonara, we split the event into two dates, so that there would be less people at each event, and therefore more opportunity to spread out. My parents backyard Is really large, so running out of space for people to spread out was not a concern.
On Saturday, September 19, we had the sayonara with friends, and on Sunday, September 20, we had the sayonara with family and family friends (older family members and friends, as well as those with conditions that put them in a high risk category all stayed home). We had many friends take COVID tests prior to this.
All of the decorations were Japanese themed, there were signs and guides reminding everyone to stay 6 ft apart, sanitation stations throughout the area, and pre-packaged dinner boxes for no-contact food. We also had a stop light system in place using red, yellow, and green glow sticks so as to indicate an individuals comfort level with being around others. Depending on what color you were wearing - helped others understand how distant you were requesting to be. On day 1, the yellow and green looked much too similar in the sunlight, so the next morning before day 2, I went out to purchase blue glow sticks to represent yellow.
Before getting too concerned, the photos in the gallery below are of me with my immediate family.
Stay SAFE,
Austin Marie
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