This is what I wanted our Christmas dinner to feel and look like.

That never happened.

During Christmas of 2023, my family and I fell sick with the A-type Flu virus. We spent our holidays going back and forth between rooms, delivering water and medicine. The virus hit us a week before winter break, starting with Josh and me. Josh was immediately admitted to the clinic and put on an IV. The following day, I took his place in the same bed with an IV hooked up to medication called TommyFlu. Soon, my mother-in-law also started coughing, but thankfully, it was just a cold. However, Tyler, my third son, had a fever and was diagnosed with the flu. He refused to have an IV, so the doctor prescribed him a syrup medicine. It was hard to keep up with giving him the syrup every 12 hours, but we managed to keep his fever at bay. We had to stay home for five days due to the doctor's orders, which meant we had delivery for Christmas eve and homemade soup and rice for Christmas dinner. We couldn't attend church due to our illness. For New Year's Eve, it was just the five of us since my in-laws went on a trip. I cooked 떡국, a Korean rice cake soup, for the first time, but it could have been better. And that was how we spent our holidays from 2023 to 2024.