Planning a COVID-Conscious Outdoor Gathering
A year ago, a COVID campfire guide would never have occurred to me. These days, COVID-conscious outdoor gatherings are my preferred way to spend time with others.
I had been talking for months about planning a small backyard gathering, but I just hadn’t gotten it together. That’s been my theme this year: 2020, Not Quite Able to Get It Together. The days are slow, while the weeks and months are passing with remarkable speed. But, I don’t need to tell you that. “We’re all in it together,” after all.
These days it helps to have some sort of catalyst to inspire me to act. Last week, that catalyst’s name was Paul, my friend Ashleigh’s husband. Sometimes I run into him when I walk my dogs as he works at an architecture firm near my home. It had been a while since I had seen Paul because he, like many people, was working from home more frequently. However, last Monday I did run into Paul and mentioned planning a backyard get-together.
Hatching the Plan
Later that day I texted Ashleigh, and we decided to get together on Saturday evening for our COVID campfire. The most tricky thing about making plans for an outdoor gathering is the moving target that is the weather forecast. It certainly was for this gathering. We changed the date and time, no less than 3 times before finally getting together on Sunday evening. Even then we were battling some pretty intense wind, but we made it work. Perhaps the silver lining is that in a pandemic people don’t make a lot of plans, so you can remain more flexible.
I love to have something to plan, so this was pretty much the highlight of my week. We decided to do a simple campfire in our backyard. After researching COVID precautions, I decided to do easy snacks, s’mores, beer and wine.
General COVID Campfire Safety Measures
There is no shortage of safety guides out there for planning gatherings during this pandemic. The CDC guide is pretty straight forward and helpful. For this gathering, I had hand sanitizer, extra masks and antibacterial wipes available.
Following the advice of experts, I also made a bathroom plan that we ultimately didn’t have to use. This included disinfecting our bathroom and door handles as close to our guests’ arrival as possible. I also removed our cloth hand towel and had paper towels available instead. There was another container of antibacterial wipes available in the bathroom for good measure.
COVID Campfire Snacks & Safety
Everything that I read about COVID food safety emphasized the importance of avoiding shared utensils, keeping food handling to a minimum and offering individually packaged foods.
For this gathering, I decided to pick up some of my favorite snacks and packaged them myself. Before putting the snacks together, I washed all of my serving platters and disinfected the snack packaging and the counter surface. I also wore a mask and gloves when I put these together.
Many of the packaging options that I considered felt overly wasteful. In the end, I used lotus or tulip paper baking cups for my Chex Mix and Muddy Buddies platter. This ended up working perfectly. They typically come in neutral colors and they have an earthy, Fall aesthetic, so they worked well for the season. They were also easy to grab, an added bonus for limiting hand/food interactions.
I also made pre-packaged s’mores kits. In keeping with the baking cups, I was able to find paper sandwich bags. Not only were they not your basic plastic sandwich baggie, but they were also a kraft paper color that worked well with the overall look that I was going for. I found some cute s’mores stickers and used them to keep the bags closed. Some stickers were more effective than others.
I have a tendency to go overboard with food, so I was really trying to keep it in check for this small gathering. With that being said, I wanted to offer a warm snack. Although I had high hopes of trying a new cheese and jalapeno take on pigs in a blanket, I ran out of time. In the end, I went with your basic pigs in a blanket instead.
These little piggies presented a bit of a challenge when it came to serving. I attempted to solve this challenge with a cool vintage casserole dish complete with a tea candle warmer that my Mom gave me. Hoping to make these easy to grab, I skewered each one with a bamboo toothpick fork. On a less windy day, it would have been perfect, but it didn’t work out for the warming tea candles this time. Regardless, it was kind of fun to attempt to reheat them over the fire using our s’mores sticks.
Decorations
I am far from being a Pinterest perfect decorator or crafter. Fortunately for me, my family members are much more capable in this area than I am. My parents plant a big garden every summer, and for the last couple of years my Mom has grown small, decorative pumpkins and miniature painted corn. This campfire occasion simply called for the repurposing of my dining room centerpiece. I literally just stuck the little pumpkins and corn in a flower pot. Could I have done better? Sure, but I did what I could, and it looked good enough in photos.
I also find that a charming vintage tablecloth can take the junky picnic table that came with your house to new heights. My friend, Twinkle, is great at using vintage pieces to create warm and inviting dinner parties. It is probably more an extension of who she is than something she does. I really miss her dinner parties.
COVID Campfire Conclusion
If you are a details nerd like me, planning a small campfire gathering is a welcome distraction from, well, everything going on right now. It gave me some incentive to do some yard work, and it got me off of Facebook and away from the 24-hour news cycle for hours at a time. It gave me something to research, plan and write about. Most of all, it was a treat to spend time with friends.
A younger version of myself would probably have been upset that not everything worked out perfectly for this gathering. Older, wiser me understands that ice-cold pigs in a blanket are the least of our worries and a distraction from what is really important, making the most of the time we spend together.
These days, we all have to weigh the risks and benefits of getting together in person. For me, I am most comfortable with small outdoor gatherings, like say a COVID campfire. I know some people aren’t comfortable at any gathering right now, and that’s okay. I just look forward to a time in the future when we can all be together again.
COVID Campfire Shopping List
Amazon & Amazon Prime
- S’mores Stickers
- Paper Sandwich Bags (These were $3.99 when I bought them. The price has increased significantly, so this is a more affordable option.)
- Lotus Baking Cups or Tulip Baking Cups (The lotus cups are pricey for the quantity you get. I’m going to try these tulip cups next time.)
- Bamboo Forks
- Purell
- Kleenex Hand Towels (If you can store a case, these are a much better deal.)
Amazon Fresh
- Marshmallows
- Graham Crackers
- Hershey’s Chocolate
- Crescent Dough Sheet
- Lit’l Smokies
- Muddy Buddies
- Chex Mix
- Clorox Disinfecting Wipes
COVID Campfire Playlist
This one is borrowed, so I wouldn’t have picked all of these songs. It’s not the worst for background tunes.
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