Slow December Mornings— learning to give myself just a little bit of stillness

I’ll be honest — I’m not someone who usually wakes up early enough to meet the morning gently. I’m the snooze-button girl. The “five more minutes” girl. The “why didn’t my alarm go off?” girl — even when it did (twice).

Most days, I start already behind — rushing, scrambling, trying to catch up while life is already moving without me. I love my people, I love my home, I love the chaos — but I rarely step into the day quietly. I don’t give myself space, or time, or breath before everything begins.

But this morning was different.

Today is Sunday — a day with no real schedule, no rushing out the door, no frantic countdown. And somehow, whether by accident or grace, I woke up early enough to sit with a warm cup of coffee and let the day find me slowly.

The Christmas tree sat right in front of me — glowing softly, gentle and warm like it had been waiting for me to notice. No alarms. No deadlines. No sprinting into the morning.

Just slow.

And if I could freeze that moment — the glow, the warmth, the quiet — I would. Not to escape life, but to carry peace into it. To remind myself that I don’t always have to start at full speed. Sometimes stillness isn’t laziness — it’s kindness. Sometimes slow is medicine.

It made me wonder how many mornings like this I’ve slept through. How many times I traded five minutes of grounding for five more minutes under the covers. How different my day might feel if I gave myself even a tiny margin of stillness — even once in a while.

I don’t expect myself to suddenly become a sunrise-loving, yoga-stretching morning person. I probably won’t. But maybe — on weekends, on Sundays, on days like today — I could choose slow. I could choose soft. I could choose to breathe before the world needs anything from me.

Not perfectly. Not every day. But when I can.

Because I think I deserve that moment. And maybe you do too.

And now, an hour in — coffee gone, tree still glowing — it hits me: I’ve been surviving my mornings, not shaping them. I think I’m ready to shift that.