Everything was ready for Christmas. Cards were sent, presents wrapped, house cleaned and everything packed, ready to go to meet family for Christmas.

But then everything changed within a few hours. First this silly wind that made my eyes cry, my nose tickle and then this nasty caught. Suddenly my temperature reached 39°C and I knew that I just had to surrender. The following day I texted family about us not coming on the expected date and just stayed in bed. Two days later I realized that we would probably have to cancel the whole trip as I had a bad flu and I wasn’t probably going to be better before the end of the week.

Being sick at Christmas isn’t really the best timing. But as I always try to find the good side in the bad things that happen to me, I found several reasons why being sick at Christmas wasn’t so bad after all. I had been very busy during the past few months and I was pushing myself very hard. My children had been sick several times, I had helped a few friends who’ve been sick themselves, I had worked a lot and then there were all these Christmas events that I didn’t want to miss this year. The last years I often had to cancel several of these get togethers before Christmas, but this year I managed to go to all of them. – But this made me weaker than I thought. My start into the Holiday Season wasn’t the best.

Now I was forced to rest. In the past 9 years I never stayed sick in bed for longer than 2 days. This time I stood 4 and it felt good! I ate healthy food. And lots of it! I was spoiled by my family. My girls brought me fresh fruit and fresh fruit juice, my hubby prepared good meals for me, took great care of the children and the household and my son provided an interesting entertaining program, distracting me with board games etc. – I’m very grateful.

I didn’t have a “merry” Christmas but a very joyful one. I watched my children getting the best out of this situation. Even if they were sad not being able to celebrate like planned, they were grateful that we were together. I couldn’t be of any help for almost 5 days, so they all had to take care of everything and they did a brilliant job! Obviously, the dinner was everything but christmassy, but the candles on the table and the music in the background created the perfect atmosphere.

I spent most of the time thinking about my friends who are seriously sick during these days, those who are going through treatments or awaiting a diagnosis, or have lost precious ones they most love. Then there are all those who spend Christmas alone, hungry, traumatized, grief-stricken. And those who don’t feel the mood to celebrate Christmas because it doesn’t feel right for them right now.

This is why my thoughts and prayers go to all those who didn’t celebrate Christmas this year in the way they were used to or the way they wanted to. Christmas is not about expectations, presents or about how grand the feast will be. It’s about the people we love and the gift that was given to us two thousand years ago: He was the gift to everyone.

Therefore I send a big hug to all those who share my same Christmas experience this year. I’m sure that if you try, you’ll find at least a little something in this Christmas that makes it special, unique.