Celebrating Grandparents Day amid pandemic

The feast of St Anne was celebrated at St Anne’s Church Ponda on Sunday. This day is also celebrated as Grandparents Day among a lot of families. This year due to pandemic, many couldn’t visit their grandparents and instead used technology to stay connected.
Vanessa from Margao couldn’t risk taking her seven-year-old to meet her parents in Verna due to the pandemic.“I wanted to take my kid home, but the situation is bad and I don’t want to risk anyone. The cases in Verna are drastically increasing and exposing my kid to the virus is something I don’t want to do.” However to make her kid happy she decided to bake a cake for her folks. “I baked a chocolate cake for my daughter and we cut it at home. This way my daughter felt happy that she had something to look forward to.”
Candice Gomes decided to make it special this year and organised a zoom call with her folks abroad and her parents who live in Vasco to join in. “It was an online celebration; I had never imagined that this would be the new way of enjoyment. My sister who lives in London and brother who lives in USA decided to make time and we celebrated the feast. In fact everyone prepared something special to eat too. Though the times varied we ate something sweet.”
Joyce Fernandes of Benaulim decided to spend some quality time with her grandmother. “Though she is my go-to person for almost everything, I decided to prepare her favourite food. She helped me most of the time, it was a nice feeling.”