When Mom Gets Sick Right Before the Holidays

 When All You Wanted Was a Healthy Holiday Season

Every year since my oldest started school, our holidays have looked a little… different. Not the cozy, Hallmark kind of different. The doctor’s-office, tissue-boxes-everywhere, pharmacy-counter-on-speed-dial kind of different.

Three years in a row, our family has spent Thanksgiving and Christmas passing around germs like they were part of the tradition. Fevers, coughs, runny noses, the works. And this year—this year—I told myself it would finally be different.

All I wanted was one healthy holiday season.

One Thanksgiving where we weren’t juggling sickness between cooking dinner and checking temperatures.

One Christmas where the only thing we were unwrapping was presents—not another round of antibiotics.

But here we are.

One week before Thanksgiving… and this mama is the one who’s sick.

It hit me harder than I wanted to admit. Not just the symptoms, but the disappointment. I had wrapped so much hope into this season being “the year” we finally stayed healthy. I wanted photos that didn’t include puffy eyes. I wanted memories that didn’t involve a humidifier humming in the background. I wanted normal.

And yet—maybe this is our normal right now.

Maybe motherhood has a funny way of reminding us that we can wish and pray and plan, but life has its own timeline. Maybe being sick this week doesn’t mean the whole season is ruined. Maybe it’s just a slower start. Maybe it’s even a reminder to rest—something moms rarely let themselves do until their bodies force the issue.

So today, instead of spiraling into frustration, I’m choosing something different.

I’m choosing to believe that healing can still come.

I’m choosing to trust that a slow week doesn’t mean a sick season.

I’m choosing to rest, recharge, and let this be what it is—an inconvenient pause, not a ruined holiday.

And honestly? I’m also choosing to give myself some grace. Because moms always push through, even when our bodies are begging us to sit still.

So if you’re reading this and you’re also entering the holidays with tissues in one hand and cough drops in the other… you’re not alone. We’re the ones who hold everything together, even when we’re the ones falling apart a little.

This year might not be perfect.

But perfect was never really the goal, anyway.

Presence was.

And even sick, tired, and bundled up on the couch… I’m still here.

I’m still theirs.

And somehow, that’s enough.