Thanksgiving

Grandparents Sent Cardboard Cutouts Of Themselves To Be With Family For The Holidays

The grandkids even took them to visit a chicken coop!

It's no secret that this holiday season is going to be more challenging than most. As COVID-19 numbers continue to soar across the country, many families are having to come up with a new game plan. Like two Texas grandparents, who are safely celebrating Thanksgiving with cardboard cutouts of themselves. Not only are they fun and whimsical, it seems their grandkids are having the time of their lives with them.

Missy and Barry Buchanan of Rockwell, Texas made the decision to sit out Thanksgiving with their kids and grandkids this year in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19 and to keep themselves safe, as Missy told TODAY Parents, but they still wanted to do something "fun" for the grandkids. "We decided that we didn’t want to risk getting sick," she told the news outlet. "Then I started thinking, ‘How can I still make it fun?’”

Her solution? Mailing cardboard cutouts of herself and her husband to her kids, Mindy and Matthew, and her grandchildren. She let them know a giant box was coming and that it contained something special, "I said, ‘Don’t get too excited. It’s just something funny for Thanksgiving. I had no idea they’d be such a hit. My daughter called me laughing and went on and on about how much she loved it," she told TODAY Parents, adding that their grandkids have even taken them "to a chicken coop."

Her daughter wasn't the only one who loved the cardboard cutouts. When Missy shared a photo of the cardboard cutouts of herself and her husband on Facebook, everyone on social media clearly loved her "act of love," as she called it. "Our kids and grandkids are having such fun with 'us,'" she wrote on Facebook.

Grandparents celebrate the holidays safely with cardboard cutouts.

Missy, who is also a writer, tells Romper why she thought the cardboard cutouts were a good idea to celebrate safely in 2020. "There is so much uncertainty associated with a pandemic holiday season, but as the older generation, we wanted to show the younger ones that it is possible to stay safe and celebrate BIG... as big as a life-sized cardboard cutout!" she says. "We need to lighten the mood with a positive attitude and big dose of humor. Love and laughter will always connect us even though we are apart."

Of course most families would prefer to be together over the holidays if it was safe to do so. And hopefully next year everyone will be together again. But in 2020, cardboard cutouts of our loved ones might be the next best thing.