Autism and Christmas

I don’t know about you, but in my mind I had many ideas of how Christmas would be when I had children – all the things I wanted to do with them and the joy and excitement of the season that would fill our house as well as the lovely smells from all the baking that would go on…music, lights, decorations, the works, you know?

But Christmas, although yes, it is a magical time, there are factors I hadn’t even vaguely considered.  Kevin and I spent the day together and I remember we went to one carol service, meeting our friends there.  We also went to at least one Christmas service at least.  And one thing I really want to hear EVERY year is Carols from Kings.  To me, somehow that symbolises that Christmas is really here.

When Johnathan was finally born and we had our child here with us, I wanted to spend it as a family our first Christmas and we stayed with Kevin’s parents.  The next year we had Christmas Day at home and then went to his parents again and stayed the night.  However, Johnathan freaked out at the change in room and I spent the night with him on top of me to stop him screaming through it.  I said to Kevin we were never doing that again.

The next year both Kevin and Johnathan had the flu!  I was the ONLY ONE well on Christmas Day and able to eat…yeah, we just had our Christmas dinner a bit late.  Johnathan and Kevin opened his presents while they were in our big double bed together and they both then went to sleep.

However, the FOLLOWING year for me was an absolute NIGHTMARE!  Johnathan had been hearing about Santa and that he came INTO your house through the chimney (we didn’t have one) but anyway he entered the house through *magic* so I spent the WHOLE of that Christmas Eve night on the sofa with him constantly reassuring him that yes, we had contacted Santa and that he totally understood Johnathan was scared and instead of coming in would leave the presents at the door and Daddy would get them and bring them into the sitting room while he was asleep and he could go to sleep and not worry (fat chance of that happening!).

And you see, one of the biggest things I hadn’t even considered was my own disability and that quite frankly, no matter what I wanted to get done for Christmas, I would not have either the functional ability to “do it all” and so far have never been able to do the baling I would have loved to achieve.  Every year now we have our tree put up and taken down by someone other than ourselves.

But you know what?  In spite of it all we have a fantastic day together as a family and it is wonderful.  Boxing Day Kevin and Johnathan go to the grandparents and facetime him opening the presents there.  I fell over and got concussion leaving their house a few years ago so I stay safe at home