BOUNTIFUL — Suzanne and Darren Spencer usually have two Christmas trees: the pretty one upstairs for public display and the fun one downstairs in the family room.

That one has every ornament their kids, Will and Lauren, ever made, as well as the ornaments their paternal grandma gives them each year that are a nod to their personalities and interests.

That tree will stay in the box this year; the couple can’t bring themselves to decorate it.  Will, 18, is serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chile, while Lauren, 20, is serving a mission in Paraguay.

But the Spencers will still get to see their kids on Christmas Day, albeit on a computer screen, courtesy of Google Hangouts.

Welcome to virtual Christmas, where video calling apps and devices allow families to connect as they’re opening gifts or digging into a holiday feast, even when they’re thousands of miles apart.

Some, like the Spencers, use video calling because they have no other choice; others, because they love the technology and say it allows them to have a meaningful visit with friends and relatives with whom they might not ordinarily connect.

“I remember as a kid, my mom would call her brothers and sisters, and I’d have the phone thrust in my face to talk. I dreaded that because you always had to make small talk. Now, because you’re almost virtually face-to-face, it’s a lot more personal, and a lot more personable, as well,” said Phoebe Male, a 33-year-old event planner in Cincinnati, Ohio, who plans to spend two to three hours using Facebook’s Portal (a new device for video calls) on Christmas Day — in part because she has a new baby daughter everyone wants to see.

It’s also a sure bet that thousands of military families will be having a virtual Christmas visit as well, given estimates that about 200,000 American soldiers are deployed overseas on any given day.

Even Santa video chats, although he probably won’t answer a call on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve.

While large amounts of screen time is detrimental to children, the American Academy of Pediatrics distinguishes between passive screen time and video calling, saying that video chats are OK even for babies, who can learn vocabulary “conversing” with family members far away.

Here’s how to make the best use of the time if someone you love is phoning in Christmas this year.

Next best thing

Lt. Col. D.J. Gibb, spokesman for the Utah National Guard, is certain most members of the Guard deployed far from home will use technology to talk to their spouses, their parents and their kids during the holidays. That’s been possible since Wi-Fi became readily available overseas, using satellite connections. Back in 2003 when he was deployed in Iraq, communication was difficult and it took months — even a couple of years — to get it up and running well. Those challenges no longer exist.

Skype, owned by Microsoft, introduced free video calls in 2006, and Apple gave us Facetime in 2010. Now, almost all social media — including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Snapchat — have ways for users to communicate live using video. And some of the most popular Christmas gifts this year will be video-chat-enabled devices such as Google Nest, Facebook Portal and Amazon Echo Show.

In Cincinnati, Phoebe Male’s parents will be visiting from London on Christmas, but their Christmas gift from their daughter will be a Facebook Portal, so they can read their month-old granddaughter stories from across the Atlantic. (Male also bought them copies of the same books her daughter has.)

But even with her parents there, Male plans to spend several hours on Christmas video chatting with her three siblings and their families. She starts early, right after making coffee, mindful of the 5-hour time difference in the UK.

“We try to do a group Skype, which has ended in chaos in previous years, especially when you have three or four (children under 10) trying to speak to each other all at once.”

But the technology seems natural to the 33-year-old, who is also a food and travel blogger. When she and her husband got married in London five years ago, they streamed the ceremony over Skype for family and friends in Florida, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Canada. The best man, who was in Ohio, gave his speech over Skype.

Like many people of her generation, Male doesn’t use the phone like her parents and grandparents did.

“I don’t use my phone as a phone. My friends don’t call me; we communicate by text message or on Twitter, and then if we do call each other, it’s going to be a video call,” she said.

 A survey released earlier this year by Nexmo found that 1 in 3 Americans use video chat at least once a week, and 1 in 4 millennials talk using video every day. That’s roughly the same percentage of grandparents who say they use video chat to converse with their grandchildren, according to a survey released earlier this year by AARP.

For older generations, however, video calling may not have quite the same appeal, especially if they’re missing loved ones far away.

In Bountiful this year, the Spencers will keep their other Christmas traditions, like visiting his parents in Salt Lake City on Christmas Eve and hers in Kaysville on Christmas Day, but “it’s all going to be different without the kids,” Suzanne Spencer acknowledged.

“It’s definitely an adjustment but I’m grateful to be able to talk to them though they are still far away. That helps a lot,” she said.

Excuse to not travel?

Male, who dreaded obligatory phone calls when she was a child, said that video calling is a much richer experience than a regular phone call. For one thing, she says she talks for a longer period of time when she’s video chatting with someone.

“Whenever I settle down to make a video call, I always have a cup of coffee or tea and make sure nothing’s in the oven. You can get wrapped up in being virtually face-to-face with someone,” she said, adding that video chatting has the feel of an actual visit.

Whitney Sanchez, who lives in Draper, Utah, is also a fan of the technology, which has enabled her family to stay in touch with her husband’s parents and four siblings, all of whom are in the military or retired from it. Because of various deployments, the extended family hasn’t been able to gather together in the same place since Sanchez was married 3 and 12 years ago. But they’ll all be video chatting via Google Hangouts on Christmas Day, spanning Utah, New York, Texas, Washington D.C., Nebraska and Guam.

“Everyone tries to be on at the same time, especially on holidays. Sometimes people call in at 1 or 2 a.m. depending on where they are living and time zones,” Sanchez said. “I think even though it isn’t the same as being there in person, it gives you a more personal experience than a phone call, and you can catch a glimpse of their lives.”

Like the Males in Cincinnati, Sanchez and her husband also have something special to show off this year: an 8-month-old daughter.

 “Technology is amazing,” said Sanchez, 29. “It helps us share special moments with family, even though some of them are across the world. Now that some of us have kids, it helps even more to build connections with family members that they rarely get a chance to see in person.” 

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At least one company even built on the virtual visit idea to host its annual Christmas party. Writes Samantha Vardanega of tech-savvy training company Using Technology Better, “With the core team spread across three countries and four time zones, a face-to-face party wasn’t practical.” Instead, they “partied” online with real and virtual snacks, a Secret Santa gift exchange and lots of small talk via video conferencing. And they didn’t forget the party dress code, either.

With the technology so ubiquitous (and in some cases, free), video chatting may seem like a temptation for people to dispense with the travel and just stay home. The traffic is terrific, as Perry Como told us in 1954, and it certainly hasn’t gotten better since then. Also, the dress code is more relaxed and you can make the stuffing any way you like.

But the data say otherwise. According to AAA, some 115.6 million Americans will be traveling at some point between Dec. 21 and Jan. 1. That’s the highest number since AAA began tracking holiday travel 20 years ago.

So it’s probably true that folks would rather be home for Christmas, where you can smell the cookies and feel the hugs. If you can’t be home, though, it’s a virtual certainty that you can still share the holidays with those you love.

Photographs of Will and Lauren Spencer are displayed in their parents’ home in Bountiful on Friday, Dec. 13, 2019. Suzanne and Darren Spencer are empty-nesting it this Christmas because Will and Lauren are both on missions. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
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