Countdown to Christmas

A cozy and festive way to weave pregnancy, birth prep, and postpartum nourishment into the winter season.

Day 1- Create a Hygee corner. A cozy seat, blanket and candle. Perhaps near a fireplace. Use this space as your place to ground, sink into the womb of winter and journal, reflect, and dive into your spiritual/religious studies. 

Day 2- Warm womb tea ceremony. Herbal prenatal Hot Toddy. Lemon, warm honey water, grated ginger, chamomile or nettle infusion. Sip slow. Journal on “What do I want to feel during my birth?”

Day 3- Winter walk in soft silence. Notice the slowing down of the earth. Become curious and reflect on your own longing to slow down during the winter. What does winter teach me about gestation?

Day 4- Cozy blanket and movie night. Watch a positive birth documentary or nourishing homebirth videos. 

Day 5- Hang lights. Create a womb like atmosphere in your home while decorating for the holidays. Soft lights soothe the nervous system. 

Day 6- Prepare a birth playlist of instrumental winter melodies, lullabies and songs that feel like snow.

Day 7- Bake gingerbread cookies or bread. Use black strap molasses. It’s full of iron! Make extra to freeze and save for postpartum.

Day 8- Make cacao or homemade hot chocolate. Cacao is heart expanding. Sip slowly, unplugged, in your cozy corner. Stay present in the moment and just notice how you feel. 

Day 9- Make paper snowflakes or paper stars. Write birth affirmations on them and hang around your home.

Day 10- Make a winter stew or soup. Make an extra batch to set aside for your postpartum. Ginger and turmeric chicken soup- chicken thighs, bone broth, onion, kale, ginger, turmeric, and lemon - so grounding and warming. Or for the vegetarian creamy- mushroom, barley and spinach, stew. Sautéed mushrooms, barley, coconut milk, fresh thyme, so comforting! 

Day 11- Write on winter gratitude- 5 strengths you already have for your labor. Place them in your stocking to read again Christmas morning.

Day 12- Craft a special salt dough ornament today. Make it your birth amulet or an object to hold during labor. Include a way to hang it on your Christmas tree.

Day 13- Visit a holiday market. Purchase a self care item for your postpartum time.

Day 14- Watch a holiday classic or a new Hallmark holiday rom com. While watching fold your baby clothes and diapers.

Day 15- Write holiday letters or cards to your loved ones. Invite them to help you during your postpartum time. Ask for 1 small favor. Practicing receiving will open you up to feeling nourished in the postpartum period.

Day 16- Curl up with a birth book by the fire or candle light. Light a holiday scented candle or put on a simmer pot of cinnamon sticks, cloves, orange peels, and apple peels. 

Day 17- Make a Hygee birth or postpartum snack basket. Include your favorite snacks, cozy herbal drinks, chocolate.

Day 18- Dance with your baby belly to holiday music. 

Day 19- Create a nest for the evening in front of the Christmas tree. Bring the massage oil. Massage your belly or have your partner massage your baby belly.

Day 20- This evening is mother’s night. People from all over the world, different cultures, different traditions, different spiritual paths are all celebrating the mother’s present and the mother’s that came before us. Share in this tradition. Make it grand or just spend a few moments with a candle reflecting on the mothers you know, yourself as a mother, your mother, her mother and her mother and her mother… 

Day 21- Today is the winter solstice. It is the shortest day of the year and the longest night. Tonight by candle light, write 3 things you wish to release before baby arrives. Put these slips of paper on your altar, behind your religious icons or into your nativity scene. You may also burn it in your Yule fire. Use whatever tradition and practice speaks to you. It will be heard. 

Day 22- Read out loud a favorite childhood holiday story to your baby. Your babe hears you and feels the coziness this brings for you. 

Day 23- Burn frankincense and myrrh or add the essential oil to your diffuser. Write a letter to your baby that is growing in your womb.

Day 24- Indulge in a Christmas Eve before bed ceremony. Put on wool socks, turn off all lights and light candles, pop on a winter playlist… you’re going to make a moon milk to drink slowly while sitting with your tree and reflecting on the joys this month brought. Vanilla Chai moon milk- warm milk (cow, oat or almond). Add vanilla, cinnamon, turmeric, pinch of nutmeg.