Discovering how to do Christmas differently with an autistic son

A mum of two boys under five, the eldest of whom is autistic and non-verbal, shares her experience of finding a different way to celebrate Christmas.

Personally, I love Christmas, the excitement, the decorations, the present buying, and the nativity plays. What’s not to love?

It may be wrapped up in commercialism but at heart it’s about Jesus’ birthday – and for me, that’s worth celebrating. However, last Christmas wasn’t that great for us.

I think it was a combination of Toby’s first two-week school holiday (he started at a special school in September) and his struggles with disruption to his routine, bad weather, and our family’s lack of sleep.

Toby is a very lively boy and because he doesn’t play with toys, he needs to be out and about and kept busy. This is much easier in the summer, when the weather is warmer and there are lots of places to visit. Finding ‘Toby-friendly’ days out in the winter is more of a challenge. In the early hours of 26 December, I remember googling every single soft play centre I could think of. I found just one that was open that day, at a large shopping centre. We were there for opening time and for a while had the whole soft play area to ourselves, which was perfect for Toby. Although it seems most other people had better things to do on Boxing Day, it gave me some time to wander round the sales. Every cloud has a silver lining – right!?

Less successful was a day at a National Trust property. The plan was for Toby to run off some energy in the adventure playground. It was a very cold day and he cried most of the time, which could have been something to do with the fact that he wouldn’t wear gloves and his hands were freezing or the fact he had been up all night as he really struggles with sleep, especially during school holidays.

Last year, I remember buying Toby a box of jelly babies and a few other things. He doesn’t really do presents because he doesn’t like anything new, and as he doesn’t play with toys or speak he is completely unaware of the latest ‘must have’ items.

When I was growing up I was always awake very early on Christmas morning, desperate to go downstairs and open my presents. Last year Toby was awake very early too, only he had no idea it was Christmas Day. He stood at the front door for a long time, crying, wanting his taxi to pick him up and take him to school.

While he had a meltdown I sat in tears thinking of every other family having a wonderful Christmas morning. Then I got on the computer and booked a holiday for next Christmas because I felt that I just couldn’t do this again.

So, we’re off to Center Parcs this Christmas. Toby finds school holidays easier when he is away from home. For him, being away is a ‘good different’ as he’s distracted from the feeling that everything is wrong because there is no routine and no school. The pool and facilities are open as normal over Christmas, and although there will be Christmas festivities going on we will be free to do our own thing. Toby loves swimming and there is something about being in the forest that he loves too – maybe it’s the trees making it feel dark, enclosed and secure. And guess what? A happy Toby means a happy everyone else!

I don’t need to worry about buying presents, prepping the Christmas dinner or wrapping presents, and the best thing is that we are actually looking forward to Christmas this year rather than worrying about how we will keep Toby entertained.

We’ll be celebrating Christmas in our own way – in our little log cabin in front of the fire. We’ll be celebrating the joy and peace that we have, despite the challenges of everyday life. It may look different to how everyone else does it, and how we’ve done it every other year up until now, but there is something liberating about doing life differently as our little family remembers what Christmas is really all about.