It’s that time of year when all parents of disabled children and adults become anxious not knowing whether this year they will enjoy the festivities including the lights, presents and visitors.

It is difficult to explain to Jack that it is not Christmas in October when the stores start putting up their Christmas displays, how do you explain to a non-verbal man that he has to actually wait another 11 weeks before he gets presents?

I always remember one year when Jared and Jack were 10 and 8 we were approached by Sky News who wanted to do a story on us as a family about how we cope with children and their disabilities at Christmas.  I thought it would be a lovely article highlighting the struggles, anxieties and sometimes meltdowns we face so agreed to do the article.  The first problem was they wanted to film us in November with our tree, decorations and presents on display!!  I patiently explained this was never going to happen as Jack in particular would not understand that this was in fact ‘make believe’ and would have to wait another 6 weeks at least before Christmas arrived.  Eventually we compromised and at the beginning of December the film crew arrived to film the report.  On the day I was interviewed we discussed the challenges we faced as a family with special needs children at Christmas time.  The boys on the day were troopers and Jack was actually on his best behaviour, with a little bit of bribery by letting him watch Thomas the Tank Engine, which he stills watches to this day and he is now 28.

I am always amazed by Jack though, when you think the meltdown is going to come it doesn’t, and in his own way I think he enjoys the idea of Christmas.  He always goes on the hunt for presents as soon as he returns home looking for anything with his name on which we hide as one year he managed to find the presents and then proceeded to open all the ones with his name on.  What is particularly astonishing about this is we have a Jake in the family and also a John but he left those presents untouched.

Juggling how we all sit around the table is another stressful challenge for me, as Jack wants to eat on his own, Jared wants to be near to us but not beside us, and Dan, well he has a chat with himself so that he can cope with sitting in close proximity to his family.  The boys arrived home yesterday for the Christmas holiday and we somehow managed to get everyone near to each other for dinner without any upsets and it seemed to work so fingers crossed for Christmas lunch.

It may take Jack two days to open his presents because he has a system, he shakes and feels each one then decides whether it is something he wants and will then open it, other presents are discarded and eventually he may open them or given a little help from one of his brothers.  Jared on the other hand will open everything in a rush and then sit and admire his new presents and Dan will open his when no one is looking at him as he really does not like the attention.

So I am prepared, everything is wrapped, the food is prepped and the wine is chilling, so all that is left to say is have the most wonderful Christmas, thank you for reading my blog,  and happy New Year.

Oh and one piece of advice, if it all gets too much, go into the bathroom or a room as far away from everyone as possible, take a towel scream into it, have a quick cry take a deep breath and then you will feel so much better.  Alternatively drink more wine!

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection….. Buddha