A few nights ago this recurring dream started, I keep having this dream that I wake up on Christmas Eve morning and realize I haven’t bought a single present. I haven’t ordered any gifts the kids want, I don’t have any presents for family or my nieces and nephews, no stocking stuffers, no wrapping paper, nothing is ready for Christmas at all.
This is not something I’ve ever worried about in real life. Which is exactly why it felt so strange and so heavy. I keep waking up with that panicked feeling in my chest, and it lingers almost all morning.
It feels symbolic, like my mind is trying to get my attention about something deeper.
Since 2020 I have put my Christmas tree up on November 1. Before that it was always the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but during that year I think everything changed for everyone. That year I needed the coziness earlier, and I wanted the lights, the warmth, the magic before December gets busy and chaotic.
And honestly, I love it. I love waking up in the morning and seeing the glow of the tree. I love the peacefulness before the holiday rush fills the calendar, love the ambiance, the slowness, the feeling of getting an extra month of holiday magic.
But this year feels different, I feel even more stressed than usual, even more emotional, and it has taken me a while to understand why.
This is my oldest daughter’s last holiday season while she still technically lives at home, yes she will come home for holidays, yes she will be here in the summers, but life is about to shift in a real way when she graduates high school this spring.
I feel it, every day, in tiny, ordinary moments that suddenly feel like they are slipping through my fingers. Her shoes by the garage door, her bedroom light on late at night, her voice and laughter as she is on facetime with a friend drifting through the house. The small routines that made up our days for the past eighteen years.
I am trying so hard to savor everything this season, every laugh, every shopping trip, every hair appointment, every night she stays in or when her friends hangout at our house. Every little moment that used to feel so normal and now feels sacred.
I am starting to think maybe that dream wasn’t about presents at all. Maybe it’s about presence, maybe it’s about the fear of missing things, missing memories while I’m busy worrying about everything else.
Maybe it was my subconscious reminding me that I’m in a tender season of transition. Time really is moving way too fast, and motherhood shifts quietly, almost without warning, and suddenly you are standing in the doorway realizing a chapter is ending and a new one is beginning.
If you’re feeling emotional this December, and noticing time and change in a new way, or if you’re a little more sensitive than usual for reasons you can’t quite name, just know you’re not alone.
The holidays hold so much more than joy. They hold nostalgia, memories, transition, and awareness that everything is changing, even while the lights twinkle and the music plays.
This year I’m reminding myself to slow down, to breathe, to let the magic in instead of rushing past it., to be present for the moments that are here right now.
Yes this dream keeps giving me anxiety and then I start to panic and rush to order gifts, but I think it’s an invitation to notice, to slow down, to savor, and to stay awake to the season I am in right now.
These are the memories we carry with us long after the presents and gifts are opened and the year slips away.
Nikki Lanigan
Nikki Lanigan is a yoga, HIIT, and Barre instructor, she is also a Holistic Health Coach through Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Nikki is trained in Yoga Shred, Yoga Psychology, meditation, chakra balancing, and EFT/Tapping. She has done trainings with Sadie Nardini and Ashley Turner. She got her 200 hour yoga teacher training in 2017 at the Carrie Treister School Of Yoga. Nikki takes a holistic view of health, helping her students and clients reach a place of self-love not just through movement, but with mindset and lifestyle guidance as well. Nikki is also show prep writer for The McVay Media Show Prep and host of the podcast Fit, Fun, and Frazzled. Connect with Nikki on Instagram. www.instagram.com/nikkilanigan.yogaandwellness www.instagram.com/fitfunandfrazzledpodcast
