She May Not Wear A Cape, But She Is a Holiday Hero

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Mothers by definition are heroes and I imagine many children young and old would declare their own mothers to be the fittest for the title of Holiday Hero.

And while I won’t snatch a well deserved crown from your mom’s head, I will insist that my mother too has long served and earned a Holiday Hero crown of her own.

My mom is now 73 and I only wish she would stop serving everyone else long enough to take care of her own aches and pains.

But even now as the role of Mother also includes Grandmother of six, it is a challenge to convince her to sit long enough to watch an episode of Downton Abbey.

When I browse back through my childhood memories, I rarely find my mother sitting down. She seemed to always be in motion with the holiday season kicking her speed to high gear.

In fact, a phrase I hear echo in my memory is her saying, “C’mon, we have to get into HIGH GEAR!”

Whether she was hosting a Christmas party for a hundred people or carefully wrapping countless gifts, she gave each detail incredible attention. My mom is a true “mother” who has devoted her life to mothering her four children. Even while we were young, she worked full time and managed several rental houses all with four children and a husband who travelled for work.

I’ve spent my life thanking God for the best mother in the world whose sacrificial love filled our lives.

When I became a mother myself, the reality of how much my mom has done for me and my siblings became even more apparent.

And for the last few years, my mission has been to convince my superhero mother to finally rest and relax and take care of herself.

Life Update

I wrote this post in 2013 for a sponsored campaign for the TYLENOL® Holiday Heroes promotion from McNeil Consumer Healthcare Division of McNEIL-PPC, Inc., the makers of TYLENOL®. It was a sponsored post for Kin Community. But the “Holiday Heroes” website is no longer active.

It’s now 2025 and while my dear mother is still with us and still working hard, she has Alzheimer’s and her passion for hard work is now making it extra difficult for us to help her manage her mental decline.

She can’t understand why she can’t do tasks that she’s been doing all her life.

Alzheimer’s is such a cruel condition and it heartbreaking to watch our brilliant mother lose her mental capacity day by day. I pray that scientists will soon cure this brutal disease.

Written by Susan Carraretto, co-founder of 5 Minutes for Mom.