A Different Kind of School Holidays (And the Gift I Didn't See Coming)

I'll be honest with you — this school holidays looks nothing like what we'd usually choose.

No road trip. No few nights away. No packing the car with too much stuff and not enough snacks, arguing over the playlist, and arriving somewhere new feeling that specific mix of exhausted and excited.

This year, we're staying home. And it was a decision made for us by a combination of two very real things: a big business move, and a commitment to not putting the holiday on the credit card just because it feels like we should.

If you've ever stood at that fork in the road — the one where your heart wants the experience and your bank account is gently shaking its head — you'll know exactly what I mean. There's a specific kind of guilt that comes with a "lesser" school holidays. Like you're somehow failing at the precious time part. Like your kids are going to look back and remember this as the holidays Mum didn't come through.

I've been sitting with that feeling this week.

The Business Bit (Bear With Me)

Right now, Naughty Naturopath Mum is in the middle of a big shift — we're moving the business back home. And to make that transition easier (and the office a little lighter on moving day), we're running our End of Year sale: Back to Our Roots.

The name wasn't accidental. Getting back to our roots is exactly what this season feels like — stripping back, simplifying, returning to what actually matters. In the business, yes. But also, as it turns out, at home too.

The Moment That Stopped My Guilt Spiral

In the middle of all of this — the planning, the packing up, the mental load of a thousand decisions — my daughter said something that I wasn't expecting.

She told me she was really happy we weren't going away these holidays.

Not in a consoling-Mum way. Genuinely happy.

Because for her, staying home means not having to mentally prepare for a new environment. It means our pets are here. It means her space, her routine, her sense of safety is completely intact. For my girl, home isn't the consolation prize. Home is the gift.

And just like that, my guilt spiral did a very ungraceful stop.

What We Tell Ourselves Holidays Have to Look Like

There's so much pressure — cultural, social, the highlight reel of everyone else's getaways on Instagram — to make school holidays memorable. To fill them up. To go somewhere, do something, create the content of a childhood worth having.

But I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

What actually makes my kids feel loved and secure isn't a destination. It's me. It's us. It's the ordinary Tuesday where I stopped what I was doing and watched something dumb on YouTube with them. The conversation in the car on the way to footy training. The inside joke that only our family would understand. Watching bad movies on purpose just to have a fun family sledging match the whole way through.

The relationship is the thing. Not the trip.

The Long Game

My kids are young teens now. And somewhere in the back of my head, I'm aware that the window of them wanting to spend holidays with us is not infinite. That thought used to terrify me — like I had to cram every possible experience into these years before they evaporate.

But here's the reframe I keep coming back to:

If I keep showing up for them — in the big moments and the boring ones, in the holidays that look Pinterest-worthy and the ones that really, really don't — they will still want to go on holidays with me when they're 25. Or 30. Because the relationship we're building right now, in these ordinary, imperfect, screen-heavy school holidays, is the foundation for that.

You don't build that by going somewhere. You build it by being someone they trust. Someone they feel safe with. Someone who was there.

The Reality Check We All Need Sometimes

Will there be more screen time than usual this week? Absolutely. Am I going to feel a flicker of mum guilt about it every single day? Almost certainly (but that's what Mumma Magic blend is for!)

But I'm also choosing to see this for what it actually is:

A season of coming back to our roots. A chance to slow down inside our own walls. A reminder that my daughter — in her own beautiful, specific way — already knows that sometimes staying home is the best kind of holiday there is.

And maybe she's been right about that all along.

If you're navigating a school holidays that looks a little different this year — financially, logistically, emotionally — you're not alone. And for those moments when the mum guilt creeps in, our Back to Our Roots sale is still running. Sometimes the tools that help us feel a little more grounded are the best investment of all.

→ Shop the Back to Our Roots sale 👇