To travel or not to travel? That's the question Irish people all over the world are asking themselves as the Christmas season arrives.
Covid-19 has thrown a spanner into the works of the great annual return. Those airport scenes of happy families tearfully embracing, the welcome home signs and balloons and Santa hats - they're absent this year as terminals remain empty, or those who have decided to return slump wearily out of the baggage area towards socially distanced loved ones.
So what are the issues weighing on people's minds as they try to make their decision?
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Sean Hayden is undecided on whether or not to come home. Originally from Co Longford, he runs four bars in Manhattan.
Christmas is usually a very busy time for him, but this year, Covid has turned everything on its head. Three of his four bars are closed, which should provide him the opportunity to come home, but he has to think of his family. The Covid case numbers in New York are high, and rising.
Does he risk bringing the virus home to his mother, father, brother and sister?
"It's up in the air right now," he says. "They say there's a lockdown looming (in New York) so we’ll have to wait and see where we are with that."
His parents are "in great form", he says, his mother still working as a home help and his father active. He feels if he takes the right precautions, he and his wife should be able to come home safely.
"It's very easy to get tested here, we could get tested before we get on the flight and I think there's another place in Dublin I can get tested once we get off the flight and maybe quarantine for a few days until we get the results."
He hasn’t booked a flight yet but probably will by the end of the week.
"Worst case scenario, if I have to cancel it, I'll cancel it."
He says, for him, the Christmas holiday doesn’t really mean anything because he's busy working.
New York is wonderful but "Ireland is always a special place to be at Christmas".
Don O'Neill is an Irish fashion designer living in New York. He's been coming home to Ballyheigue in Co Kerry for the past 15 Christmases, but this year will be different.
Instead, he and his husband Pascal Guillermie, from Guadeloupe, are sending Christmas cards and planning to be present at family gatherings via Zoom, WhatsApp and Viber.
"The idea of quarantining, and quarantining when we get back, and how long we'd stay for or wouldn't stay for, and how situations are changing globally … the risk of bringing anything home with us … it's just gotten so complicated."
He tears up as he visualises the annual ritual of his father and brother Patrick coming to Farranfore airport to collect him at Christmas. One of his tasks would normally be to make a wreath to lay on the grave of his mother, who died eight years ago.
"When I go home for Christmas, it's a full-on production. There's an itinerary of cousins and aunts and uncles to be visited." But that's not going to happen this year.
"I think we're more comfortable just staying put," he says.
As she prepared to catch her flight back to Ireland, Julie O'Connor said she’d never seen Berlin Airport so quiet.
She was determined to get home for Christmas this year, having missed out on it four years ago because of work in Austria.
"It is just a really difficult time of year not to be at home. So it's not something I'd like to repeat anytime soon."
She and her boyfriend and sister will quarantine in Mayo for two weeks before she gets to see her parents in Clonmel, Co Tipperary.
"We just want to make sure that we do take all the precautions. We don't want to be the reason anyone gets sick.
"For me, my priority will just be to see my parents. And after that, I know that I might have to wait until my next trip home maybe to see a lot of my friends. But for me I think that's a sacrifice I can make this year."
Julie is active in the Berlin GAA club and one of her club mates, Sarah Madden from Ballinasloe, Co Galway, has taken the decision to stay in Berlin for Christmas.
She and her boyfriend weighed up the options of coming home, but they didn't have "a safe place to quarantine".
She added: "What if we were positive? We thought, if we come home and, yeah, we could quarantine somewhere for a few days but if we're positive, then we're kind of in a situation where we can't exactly pay for accommodation for two weeks more."
But she says she'll be missing the Christmas lights in Ballinasloe.
Paul Daly, who lives in London but is originally from Mayo, is already home. He works in marketing so can work anywhere.
"All I need is my phone and my laptop and I'm good to go anywhere".
Paul is isolating at home with his parents, taking precautions such as eating on his own, using a designated bathroom, wearing a mask in the house and socially distancing.
"I wouldn't be happy over in London by myself for Christmas … It is a risk and you have to take that risk but as long as you're taking all the precautions that you can, what else can you do?"
