‘Today’ Host Savannah Guthrie Springs Surprise on Co-Anchors at Holiday Party Following Eye Surgery

Savannah Guthrie surprised everyone at the Today Show holiday party. Thursday night The television host has been missing from the air recently after she sustained a serious eye injury before Thanksgiving. The host surprised her fans with a post shared to Instagram of her making an appearance at the holiday party with Willie Geist and Hoda Kotb recalling the emotional reunion during Friday’s episode.

“Speaking of holiday treats by the way, we got one yesterday when Savannah stopped by our holiday party,” Geist said on the show. “It’s the first time a lot of us have seen her since her eye surgery.”

“She was doing great. She was there with her mother, Nancy, and she said, ‘You all are a sight for sore eye.’ Singular. She’s only seeing out of one of them now,” he added, as first reported by Entertainment Tonight.

Kotb called Guthrie’s appearance at the party “a shocker.”

“I was just tooling around doing what we do at parties and Savannah walked in and I said, ‘Oh my gosh. What a great day!’” she revealed. “It was a lot of fun.”

Geist then gave an update on Guthrie’s recovery, spring she is “on track” and “feeling really well.”

“She’ll be back soon,” Kotb added.

Guthrie also shared a series of photos from the party on her Instagram Thursday, with all of her co-workers looking in good spirits at seeing her back.

“Reunited and it feels so good. Loving up on my [Today Show] girls at the TODAY holiday party [party emoji and christmas tree emoji],” she wrote in the caption of the post.

The mother-of-two opened up about her injury, and difficult recovery, in an interview with PEOPLE earlier this week. She suffered the serious injury to her eye after her 2-year-old son accidentally hit her in the eye with with the pointy end of a toy train. After laser treatments did not help ease her symptoms, she had to undergo surgery when the vision in her right eye went dark.

“The retinal tear had deteriorated sharply, and I lost my vision. And that’s what happens if you don’t fix this: You lose your sight,” Guthrie said. “That was the first time I felt freaked out. was hoping that they weren’t going to get in there and see, ‘Oh, it’s worse than we thought. We can’t fix it.’ That was probably the lowest I felt, because I was just really scared.”

She also described her recovery after surgery, which involved having to lie face down the entire first day of surgery. She now has to switch from that to sitting up each hour.

“It’s uniquely challenging, this recovery,” Guthrie said. “Your body starts hurting in different places, lying down like that.”

Guthrie told the outlet she expects to be back at work the week of Christmas, though it may be longer depending on her recovery progress.