Every year since Andy and I married, the evening of our Thanksgiving celebration we would bring out the boxes of artificial tree and holiday ornaments to unpack Christmas. Like many families, we decorated our winter holiday times with traditions that only made a guest appearance one month out of each year. As the severity of Tony’s sensory symptoms was becoming apparent five years ago, I had to realize that a family is not made for the customs or traditions, nor is it made by them. A family should radiate love and safety for all of the members, but there is no denying it can be hard to let go of or change some activities to help Tony survive the holiday. The only thing he actually enjoys about them is driving around to look at Christmas lights.
This year posed serious scheduling challenges. Up until December 12th, I was holding down habilitation, my school work, and Hannah’s home school the best I could by myself… and so we had a lot of traditions get disinvited. Decorations went up. Hannah and I giggled heartily as we watched the mice during this year’s Ballet AZ Nutcracker production. Almost all of our usual holiday movies, however, got left out in the Christmas cold…except for The Muppet Christmas Carol. I wouldn’t dare ignore Miss Piggy’s Emily Crachit knocking on our door. And, the annual ginger bread house got only a bit of candy glitz.
We actually got a holiday miracle, though those certainly don’t occur yearly. As some of you have already heard, Miss Emily graciously agreed to leave her role at NMTSA and take over as Tony’s habilitation therapist. Last week we made it through some last-minute holiday in store shopping at Frys, Barnes & Noble, and Ulta with her help. Having her start has allowed us to finally unpack some calm this Christmas, and I am super excited about some of the things we are already seeing as she joins us on our therapy outings.
For Hannah, we made “Jiminy Cricket Milkshakes” last night after reading Luke 2, and “Rolly’s Spotted Cranberry Pancakes” this morning from a holiday Disney cookbook. Tony gave all of that the stink eye, and refused to open (and didn’t want to touch) any of his presents. My friend K.M. and I were talking about this at Melissa’s annual Christmas brunch today, and the reality is our little man would be perfectly happy getting nothing. He doesn’t desire material things and would have rather played chase.
In the past 24 hours, I’ve had lovely visits with Gena, G.R, and K.M. that brought that little bit of extra light into my world that it needed to feel like Christmas. And I’ve discovered things I might want to put in our box of traditions to unpack next year- “Hallelujah” by Pentatonix will be added to our usual mix of holiday music for sure. Our holiday season wasn’t everything I would have wanted…some of those shattered customs are attached to people, activities, and community service that forms part of the weave and texture of my soul. But I have still been blessed with what we have been able to share together.
As Andy sleeps curled up next to our tiny indoor tree, and we prepare to finish cooking our evening Christmas meal, I know tomorrow I will have to start packing away Christmas. But the Love and the Light is more than a decoration, and we will strive to set a place at the table for them every day until we begin to dust off and set up next Christmas.
