Christmas has always been a big deal in our house. All of us, kids and parents, enjoy the feeling of Christmas. We especially love the glittery, sparkly decorations that come along with it. We always have lots of garland, lights, and decorations in our house—you know—all the sparkly fun things kids love!

When you have a special needs child, those things can be either wonderful or horrific. For Holden, who is three and a half years old, it depends on his mood of the day. This year, when we pulled the Christmas tree out of the bag for the first time, we thought poor Holden was going to have a heart attack! A big, green, prickly, scary thing in the house! Holden must have thought it was a big green monster. But we got it set up with all the decorations and lights and he began to be curious about it. Pretty soon he was pulling ornaments off the tree. As the mom of three boys, I will be the first to tell you that the last thing you want is a child pulling ornaments and decorations off your beautiful tree. But when Holden began to do that instead of showing fear or aggravation I was happy! We were all relieved he was no longer scared of the tree and was enjoying having it in the house. We let him explore and figure out that the Christmas tree was harmless and was not going to hurt him.

Like many kids with special needs, Holden does not do well with change, and he has become much more observant of his surroundings over the last year. So many different things can upset him and cause him to be very unhappy. Now that it is the Christmas season, our house is not looking the same as it always does. The first few days with the decorations, he was really confused and upset about the changes. With a lot of patience and some time, Holden has become used to all the new things in the house and is actually starting to enjoy some of them.

Since we never know what simple thing might be the one thing that he just doesn’t agree with, we were worried about what his reaction to Sant Claus would be. Surprisingly, Holden was perfectly fine seeing Santa and sitting on his lap! His older brothers were sitting next to him, so that made him feel safe and secure.

We hope everyone has a blessed Christmas season.

Love,

The Green Family