The holiday season can be full of joy and shared memories, but it isn’t always the easiest time of year—especially when your family members are scattered around the world. Still, when families really love each other, they make it work, and this story is just another example of that unbreakable bond: When this family couldn’t be together on Thanksgiving, they decided to do a depressing Skype thing.
Absolutely heartwarming. It goes to show you that even when distance threatens to pull family members apart, they can still manage to slog through a pretty exhausting, unsatisfying video chat as a unit.
The Alexander family knew that this year’s Thanksgiving wouldn’t be a typical one: Their daughter Melissa and her husband were stuck home with a newborn baby, their son Dylan was studying abroad in Scotland, and an entire group of cousins was on vacation in the Bahamas. But that didn’t stop the Alexanders from pathetically meeting up on Skype at 3 p.m. EST on Thanksgiving Day to eat their respective meals “together” and meet Melissa’s new baby, who was unfortunately frozen in a position barely in frame due to a video glitch. It took Dave several tries to get this sad sack Skype session going on the family iPad because he didn’t have the most recent update, but once he downloaded it, the entire family was able to share a beautiful moment looking at their patriarch’s face via a low-angle shot that offered a generous view of his nostrils.
Wow, it’s just so touching that this far-flung family was able to celebrate Thanksgiving with a virtual hangout that was in many ways worse than doing nothing at all.
Although Dylan was already getting ready to go out with his study abroad friends when the chat started and the Beckett cousins couldn’t be heard over the sound of their dad playing the football game at full volume in their hotel room in the background, the family got to spend valuable time together as they watched Debra Alexander pan back and forth over the table full of food in their childhood home while yelling, “Can you see this?” Distance may have kept them apart physically, but the excruciating hour they spent Skyping together before everyone decided the sound delay made it too difficult for them to carry on a conversation is one that proves just how incredible families are.
What a truly wonderful story that shows how powerful our connection to our loved ones can be. Let’s all take a page out of the Alexanders’ book and remember to add a pitiful family Skype session that wastes everyone’s time to the list of things we’re grateful for this Thanksgiving!
