Christmas Morning Was Where We Met.

I think sometimes we wait for beautiful days—like Christmas—to find us.

We imagine they'll arrive looking a certain way.

The house.

The husband.

The children.

The traditions we've always known.

The presents under the tree that someone else picked out for us.

We wait for someone else to make the day feel the way we've always imagined it should. And when those things aren't there...it can begin to feel as though Christmas isn't meant for us anymore.

One Christmas, I knew there was a good chance I would wake up alone. Not because I had no one. My family was in another country, waiting for me on the other side of a video call. By the end of the day, I'd find myself watching Christmas lights and a movie with the family I lived with.

But the morning...

the morning belonged to me.

And I had a choice. I could wake up hoping the day would become something… or I could decide, ahead of time, what I wanted it to become.

So I started preparing long before Christmas morning arrived.

Not with decorations.
Not with gifts.

With questions.

What would make this morning meaningful?

If no one else were responsible for making this day special… what would I choose?

The answers were surprisingly ordinary: fresh sheets, a room that smelled clean, a candle waiting to be lit, and a mug that had been sitting in my cabinet for months, still waiting for its first cup.

I chose the music the night before so the morning would carry the atmosphere I wanted it to have before my feet ever touched the floor. Even my meal had already been planned.

I was only a few months into life after bariatric surgery, and I didn’t want Christmas to become one more reason to abandon the promises I had made to myself. I wanted to celebrate in a way that let me enjoy the day without making the next week harder.

The small things I had prepared—none of them were expensive. None of them, by themselves, could make Christmas feel like Christmas.

But together…

they became something I hadn’t expected.

The atmosphere set by the pajamas, the mug, the candle, and the music became something that wrapped itself around me.

The room became an embrace.

Not one I had been waiting for someone else to give me. One I had made with my own hands.

I spent part of that morning simply sitting with myself—reflecting, imagining the woman I hoped I was becoming, and asking myself questions I had been moving too quickly to ask.

There are some conversations that only happen when no one else is in the room.

That morning became one of them.

Later, I wrote to people I loved. I found words for things I had been carrying for a long time. I wanted them to receive the same compassion I had finally learned to offer myself only a few moments before.

I think it’s easy to believe Christmas must look like presents waiting beneath the tree because someone else thought of you.

But Christmas morning showed me another kind of gift.

The morning itself became the present.

One I had wrapped for myself days before I ever opened it.

You can make a moment.
You don’t have to wait for one.

I think that’s why I remember that morning so clearly. Not because anything extraordinary happened.

Because I chose it.

I chose the atmosphere. I chose what filled the room. I chose the pace. I chose what I would eat. I chose what I would wear.

I chose not to let Christmas simply happen to me.

Looking back now, I don’t think I was only planning a holiday. I think I was practicing a way of living—one where I stopped waiting for my life to match the picture I’d always carried in my head before I allowed myself to enjoy it.

I didn’t know it then.

I thought I was planning Christmas.

What I was really doing was learning how to meet myself.

Somewhere in that morning I refused to leave to chance, I met the woman who was brave enough to create and tend a moment for herself—alone, but not lonely, on a day that can feel so heavily lonely even for people surrounded by people.

Practicing that…

Giving myself that…

showed me I was the kind of person who had the courage to build.

Accompanied or solo.

I think she’d been waiting to introduce herself all along.

Christmas morning was simply where we met.

You can make a moment. You don’t have to wait for one.

More reflections and practical resources for creating meaningful solo moments are coming to Tend the Moment.