Diwali Quarantine Style: 16 Ways to Light up your Festive Celebrations & Make it the Best Diwali Ever !!

The COVID-19 pandemic has overshadowed all celebrations, festivals and holidays, and now it will impact how we celebrate Diwali. But it will not prohibit us from the most important part of the Diwali festival.

Every year, this month invigorates cities with a festive spirit all around. This quarter is a favourite for many. And why not? It brings excitement, enthusiasm, lights up the mood with social gatherings, festive food, and gives a break for celebrations.

Even as we do that every year, health remains paramount, and people are always ensuring that their families and friends are healthy and safe during these times. As we welcome the festive season with the commencement of the Durga Pooja, followed by Dushehra and Diwali, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is even more important to lay special emphasis on health and safety.

Diwali is less than a month away so here are some suggestions on how to celebrate Diwali 2020 Quarantine Style for you and your loved ones.

First, let us not forget that the most important part of Diwali is the family Puja, which can still be done in full festivity. Cleanse your home, decorate inside and out, hang lights to impress all your neighbours and illuminate the evening, buy new clothes and jewellery online, wear your best festive attire and enjoy a beautiful soul inspiring puja together at home.

It is essential to lay extra emphasis on following social distancing and hygiene protocols. Here’re five ways that help light up your celebrations amidst the pandemic:

1.  Greetings – 'Namaste, and not handshakes' became the common slogan during the beginning of the pandemic, where people preferred to join their hands and greet others rather than shaking your hands. Using such traditional ways of greetings, especially during the festive season may be a good idea, given how rapidly the virus is spreading.

2.   Go digital – Festivity is all about togetherness and strengthening bonds. People staying away from their family and loved ones are not able to travel due to COVID-19 led restrictions. Getting gifts from markets and visiting your family and friends could not be a safe option this year. 

This festive season, try and adjust to the new normal. Find innovative ways to send greetings and gifts to your loved ones. One can plan for digital surprises like LIVE music night on a video call, personal radio show, celebrity wishes, etc. to make the celebration more memorable for your guests. 

3.   Send Diwali Cards – Make and send Diwali cards to all your friends and relatives across the globe! Perhaps it’s time to get back to the old fashioned joys of receiving a card, as it always brings a smile. Better yet, make the card yourself with your children or, if you prefer a more polished look, take this opportunity to be photographed in your festive Wear and send a lovely photo card. 

4. Refrain from eating outside – While there is no evidence that COVID-19 can be transferred through cooked food, it is recommended to not eat from outside during the festive season, not just because of the risk of COVID-19, but because such food can cause other stomach infections, which can affect your immunity and overall health. Also, no food like a home-cooked, traditional meal at a festival, right? 

5.  Plan an indoor romantic dinner –  Travelling to your hometown for Diwali celebrations involves huge risks. People planning to celebrate Diwali with their partner can still feel enthusiastic about the festival. Find out ideas to bring celebrations at home while making it special. Avoid outside food and cook favourite meals for your loved ones. 

To make it even more special, you can get theme-based DIY romantic kits. Create a dreamy setup for a candlelight dinner from the comfort of your home. This will help you create safe celebrations and lifetime memories with your partner. 

6.  Consider DIY decorations – Planning a festive celebration with restrictions and fear of going out to shop for the required stuff is challenging. To ensure personal safety, people avoid going to markets and find it difficult to buy decoration material. Also, travelling to find the required stuff from one shop to the other is time-consuming. However, this should not impact the mood of your celebrations. 

Instead of wasting hours on finding the right stuff or toggling multiple online shopping windows, go for DIY decoration kits. They are custom made and easily available with home delivery options. These kits make your party planning free from hassle and make your space look visually ready for the party. 

7.     Lights, lights and more Lights!

Illuminate every part of your home, inside and out! Make it so beautiful that your children won;t even notice that they are missing out on fireworks.. if your home is a festival in itself! 

8.   Contactless Surprise Treats – Surprise friends and neighbors with gifts and treats left on their doorsteps. A tradition usually done around Halloween, knowing as Boo-ing, can be borrowed on Diwali for gifting! This is a fun and contact-less way to surprise your friends, relatives and neighbours who you would usually visit on Diwali. The less physical contact we have with those not in our home bubble the better, but that shouldn’t stop you from giving out Mithai, gifts and thoughtful treats for Diwali. 

9.  Limit the pax – Larger the gathering, the higher the risk of infection spread. The Government and Healthcare officials have issued standard operating processes to plan exhibitions and events with restrictions. Events like Durga puja pandals, Ramlila pandals, Diwali Mela, etc. have to follow precautions with a cap on the number of people. Thus, it is better to plan your indoor celebration with a limited number of guests. 

To ensure the health safety of your closed ones, plan a gathering with limited pax. If you’re overloaded with party arrangements, get professional decorators at home to deck up your space and make it festive ready. There are party planners in the market that provide decoration services with all safety precautions. The materials are sanitised in front of customers, and vendors wear masks that add safety to your celebrations. 

10. Diwali Car Caravan – Decorate your car for Diwali and do a Diwali Car Caravan with friends and neighbours. From the safety of your own cars, you can all get together in a car parade and drive past friends, neighbours and relatives homes with some music and excitement. Gather a group of friends to do a Car Caravan, and check on the elderly who live in your area who might like some Diwali festivity and enjoyment and be sure to include them in your driving route. You can even have a competition to see whose car is the ‘Best Decorated’ for Diwali! 

11. Charity – Instead of spending money on a needless large party, use the same money this year to make a meaningful contribution to a good cause. Or, do charity with your family in a socially distanced manner. COVID-19 has left so many people struggling with homelessness, joblessness and an uncertain future, creating an even greater need to help our communities. 

12. Arts and Crafts – I used to enjoy making homemade Dias with my children when they were younger, but there are so many arts and crafts you can do with children around Diwali. Everything from Rangoli designs, to drawing their own images of Diwali, to decorating clay dias, to making Diwali decorations for the home by hand. So enjoy and be sure to display your children’s handwork with pride! 

13. Advocacy – Reach out to your local legislatures, magistrates or town officials and encourage them to issue a Diwali Greeting to the community. Advocate for cultural awareness and visibility. This is an optimal time to maximise your towns/cities awareness and ensure that the biggest Indian holiday of the year is recognised. 

14. Follow all precautions – Needless to say, but people are now slipping when it comes to taking precautions for COVID-19 prevention. Wearing masks, washing hands regularly, using hand-rubs, are some of the precautions you must take to ensure that you and your loved ones stay safe. 

15. Do not ignore any symptoms – Studies have now suggested that COVID-19  symptoms may actually not be the most reliable marker of the infection. However, even as many people who have contracted the virus remain asymptomatic, others who have even the mildest symptoms should not ignore them, or pass them as a “seasonal flu” or “common cold”. Isolating, staying home, and taking precautions is very necessary. This is not just because you may put other people at risk, but also because with weakened immunity due to some other infection, your body may be more vulnerable to COVID-19. 

16. Avoid assumptions related to sickness – People from across the country have suffered from coronavirus infection. Though they got recovered, doesn’t mean they cannot fall sick again. Additionally, people assume that their close family and friends cannot catch the virus and it is safe to meet them. Such careless assumptions are critical that affect your safety.

While planning a social gathering for a festive celebration, it is significant to be responsible and take mandatory precautions. If any of your guests have low immunity or recently recovered from COVID-19, suggest them to stay at home. Making your assumptions about the behaviour of a virus can go wrong and ruin the post-celebration memories.

Perhaps the best Diwali ever!

Dress up, decorate, and lift your spirits for the best Diwali you have ever had at home! (And we are all professionals at being ‘At Home’ now!)Try making sweets you have never made before, choreograph your own family dance to share with loved ones across the globe, light up the night sky with tons of lights and colors and give thanks to the Gods for giving us the strength to carry on and overcome even this time of darkness. It is truly a Diwali to reflect upon, as light will always prevail over darkness.