It’s been a long year of masks, distancing and working and learning from home. But there’s still hope for having happy holidays. Even if you can’t get the family together this year for gifts and caroling, you can still toast Christmas—and, ahem, ​THE END OF 2020—with your closest fam and friends.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, experts are anticipating a new 2020 snafu this holiday season: Shipageddon. The country’s reliance on online shopping during COVID-19 will result in a cataclysmic gift-shipping emergency. This may be the year you need to try alternative gifts. 

Ah, the holidays. A time to slow down and reflect. To catch up with family over a table loaded with roast beast and who-hash. To relish bankrupting your uncle in Monopoly because one Christmas he gave your sisters 20 bucks each and nothing to you. (But let’s not get petty.)

Well, the 2020 edition is even better. Now we get to experience it all on the soft glow of a video screen instead of face to face. Yes, folks, the socially distanced holidays are here.

Watching all the new tech gadgets roll into the news feed on a near-daily basis can be dizzying. How can there possibly be 8k video when we’re just getting used to 4k TV resolution? Like the pop philosopher Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast.” Hopefully your internet does, too.

Sometimes it takes a crisis to expose cracks that are normally hidden from view—or perhaps cracks that are more convenient to ignore.

Workers across the country are meeting the essential and growing demands of a nation battling the COVID-19 pandemic. Among them are the healthcare workers, law enforcement and first responders. The grocery store and pharmacy staff. The IT, internet and wireless providers.