Even the Fun Parts Hurt: Finding Your Way Through the Holidays with Chronic Pain and Limited Energy (The Capacity-First Life Series)

You can love the holidays and still wish everyone would stop asking so much of you.

From October through January, the invitations, traditions, shopping, and expectations keep coming. Meanwhile, your body has its own plans. A gathering you genuinely want to attend can leave you exhausted. Saying no can bring guilt. Saying yes can mean spending the next two days recovering.

Stevie J. Hollis knows what it feels like to want the experience and struggle with what it costs. Drawing on life with chronic pain, she explores the complicated space between loving a celebration and having the capacity to participate.

With warmth, candid personal stories, and practical advice, she considers how to navigate crowded rooms, overwhelming noise, family expectations, and the pressure to make every occasion special. Along the way, she offers ways to plan around the energy you actually have, make room for recovery, and set boundaries with people you care about—even when you wish you could say yes.

Inside, you’ll also find holiday opt-out scripts, a sensory-friendly party checklist, and a chronic pain pacing blueprint to help put those ideas into practice.

Written for readers living with chronic pain, fatigue, sensory overwhelm, or simply more seasonal demands than they can manage, this book makes room for mixed feelings. You can treasure a tradition and need to change it. You can enjoy yourself and still need to leave early. You can miss what you used to do while finding something worth keeping now.

You deserve a holiday season you have room to enjoy—and a say in what that looks like.