This time of year means different things to different people. Families celebrate the holidays with their own traditions. All families who celebrate Christmas probably have certain things they do together, such as decorating the tree, putting up Christmas lights or even the type of food that is made at this time of year.

As I reflect back on some of our traditions, we have evolved as a family over the years. As you know, both of my children are on the autism spectrum. Ways in which they participated in the holidays has changed vastly as time has gone on. For example, one year, our daughter was doing something out of the house and we had put up the tree without her. It had taken us awhile to decorate it and put up the lights and we had really enjoyed the process of doing this. When she came home, she was so upset that we had done this without her (even though at the time, she couldn’t commit to a timeframe of doing this with us). She was not just upset, she totally flipped out and we had to take every single one of the decorations off of the tree, take the tree down (we have an artificial tree), put everything away and start over. While this made her feel better, our son was screaming and crying because of all the hard work he had done to put the tree up. It wasn’t fun at all.

Our son really loves Christmas and one year he wouldn’t let us take down the tree. He was upset and crying so we just left it up for a while. Eventually, we took it down when he wasn’t home.

Another funny scenario is when our son was 3 years old. We were all getting ready for Christmas Eve service and I had bought him a new red vest. He had fallen asleep before going to church. When we got there and I took off his coat, he screamed after looking at his vest. I had to take him out of the service and take the vest off. He never wore red again for many years!

In recent years, we have just taken all of our Christmas decorations out and let our kids do it all themselves and we have all enjoyed that. This year, my husband was away with work and I told him it was time to put up the tree so he left everything for us. I asked our daughter to participate and she didn’t want to, so my son and I did this together. It was actually quite relaxing and fun and it made me think back to the times when it wasn’t so much fun.

Some of these things that I am sharing probably seem foreign to people who do not have children or grandchildren on the autism spectrum. I have learned to adapt over the years and have had to follow the lead of our children. Our family tradition certainly is much different than the one I experienced growing up.

I have learned compassion and understanding, not only for my children but for all children with autism. They do not think the same way. They sometimes cannot express exactly what they are thinking. They do want to participate and have fun in all holidays. They want to feel valued and be included, even if it looks different than everyone else. Holidays can be challenging for those on the spectrum because holidays deviate from regular day structure. They can get easily overwhelmed and out of control. Families have to be resilient to this and they have to support their children through the process. This may be hard for others looking in to understand and that is where compassion is so important.

The great thing about Christmas is that we get to celebrate the birth of Jesus. No matter how young or old you are – whether you have autism or not, God wants us to celebrate in the birth of his Son in whatever way we can. There are no rules and no expectations. God loves us all so much!

Luke 2:11
“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior has been born.”

At Amberlea Church, we encourage children with all abilities to come celebrate with us by participating in our Christmas play on Sunday morning December 17th. You don’t need to learn any lines or practice. Just come and join us for a morning of fun!!!

Shelly Wedge
Exceptional Family Ministries Coordinator
Amberlea Church
www.amberleachurch.ca