Last updated on November 26, 2023
Podcast 045; Season 4, Episode 9; October 27, 2020
Halloween will be spent at home with our daughters. Thanksgiving, too. And Christmas. The holidays join birthdays and anniversaries as events we spend at home. Every year I post to The Autistic Me blog some thoughts on the holidays. I’ve also recorded a couple of podcasts about surviving the chaos of holidays. With the COVID-19 pandemic, this winter holiday season isn’t like what I’ve blogged or spoken about in past years.
Home for the Holidays
Welcome to The Autistic Me Podcast. I am Christopher Scott Wyatt, speaking as The Autistic Me.
From Halloween through New Year’s Day, the fall and winter holiday season presents challenges for autistics. With neurodiversity comes sensory processing issues, social skills deficits, and much more. From the flashing lights to the chaotic family gatherings, the holidays present one difficulty after another.
This season is going to be different. The novel coronavirus pandemic means we have a good reason to stay home. COVID-19 forced the cancellation of craft fairs, carnivals, parades, and concerts.
I took the girls to several small carnivals last year. As a family, we went to the Christmas light show at the San Antonio Zoo. We drove up to Dallas for the Arboretum Pumpkin Patch, too. The girls were also part of the local Christmas parade. We didn’t make it to the Nutcracker here in Texas, but I had hoped to take both girls to a performance this year.
It was a lot for me to endure, and my wife would be content at home, but we do want the girls to have great memories of the holidays.
I’m not going to miss crowds, noise, smells, lights, and other inputs.
I am going to miss seeing the girls enjoy the fall and winter events.
But, along with their excitement and joy, there were the inevitable meltdowns caused by exhaustion and overload.
The youngest struggles with sensory input, especially lights and sounds. She also doesn’t feel safe in crowds. Holiday events are as difficult for her as they are for me. She’s too young to recognize some of her limits, too, so she’ll insist on wanting to do something that will be overwhelming.
I’m sure there will still be light displays to drive past and decorated houses for the holidays. We will do what we can to be fun and festive while social distancing.
Our first efforts at holiday fun weren’t much fun, though.
Monday night, I tried to carve a pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern for the girls. It did not go well. I ended up resorting to an electric drill after various knives didn’t work. It was not a fun activity. I managed to carve one of the two pumpkins and then called it quits. The process was stressful and messy.
Cartoons and books show parents and children enjoying the process of carving pumpkins. No. It’s one sensory overload after another. It’s disgusting. But, I did it while silently screaming to myself. I don’t want to repeat the process next year. Not happening.
The resulting jack-o-lantern is not a work of art.
When the girls are older, maybe they can try to carve their own pumpkins.
Now I remember why we had a plastic jack-o-lantern with an LED light inside. It probably didn’t move with us. I wish it had.
The girls want decorations for the holidays. They want pumpkins and ghosts and witches. They see the neighborhood homes decorated and wonder why we haven’t put out skeletons and gravestones. The houses with purple and orange lights impress the girls.
Halloween has never been my favorite holiday. I’m not sure if I enjoyed it as a child. I cannot recall any of my costumes or anything special about Trick-or-Treating. Friends seem to remember much more than I do. They have photographs of creative costumes and family gatherings, which are shared on social media.
I have snippets of memories, but they are disjointed and not of any one time or place. I believe there was a Halloween party at one of the mobile home parks, in the community center. I believe there was some bubble wrap on the floor in a dark hallway. Maybe there was apple bobbing.
“What are we going to dress up as?” the girls have been asking.
“Why?” was my response. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“You have to dress up! It’s Halloween!”
If my wife has dressed up for her company costume contest, I don’t remember it. I don’t believe we have ever dressed up in costumes as adults. I didn’t do anything in college, either. I probably volunteered to work Halloween night.
The girls can play dress-up, I suppose, but we’re not going to buy anything special for costumes this year. Last year, they were cowgirls. The theory was that jeans and boots are useful long after Halloween, especially in Texas.
We are going to have our own little Halloween Party on Saturday.
We have toasted the pumpkin seeds and I plan to bake “low-carb” pumpkin bars for Halloween. There will be a Monster Egg hunt, too, with trinkets in the eggs instead of candies.
For Thanksgiving, we’ll do a small roasted turkey breast dinner. Just the four of us, as it has been for the last few years. It’s a quiet day of family movies. We’ve never done much around Thanksgiving because we live away from family.
This year, I hope most people stay home and avoid potentially dangerous gatherings. I’m worried that people will drive to visit their families and the COVID-19 lockdowns will return, with even stricture rules to stop the virus.
We have no big plans for Christmas or New Years. Our artificial tree and the trainsets will be brought inside from the garage for the girls to enjoy. We’ll bake a little, but not as much as in the past. There won’t be a lot of toys under the tree, because the girls don’t need more things. We’re encouraging them to ask for art supplies, crafts, and activities that encourage creativity.
Normally, I warn parents about the chaos and commotion of holidays, but everyone has been asked repeatedly to stay home and stay socially distanced.
I’m actually relieved because I don’t have to force myself to drive anywhere. Neither my wife nor I will be flying with the girls to another state. We’re staying home, keeping things simple, quiet, and affordable.
This is how the holidays should be.
I don’t want to be in airports or on the freeways. I don’t want to be in crowded spaces with loud music and flashing lights. I certainly won’t be missing Christmas shopping in stores and malls.
The girls will miss some of those things, or at least claim to miss them. But, they never really enjoyed long drives. They struggled in airports. The little one gets agitated by flashing lights and sounds. They want the things that cause them stress.
Now, we get to avoid the meltdowns that accompanied travel and activities.
I’m not sure there will be a return to normal in a year or two. Maybe next holiday season will begin with traditional Trick-or-Treating. Maybe there will be carnivals and concerts.
Even if the experts tell us normal is okay next year, I’ll probably be too anxious to trust going out and about in crowds. My wife and I might make this year’s experiences our new normal.
As an autistic parent, I hope I can teach my children that avoiding the sensory overload of the holidays is okay. It is okay to want quiet spaces and relaxing family nights together.
Pumpkin carving aside, I do believe we’ll have a good holiday season at home.
I am Christopher Scott Wyatt, speaking as The Autistic Me.
Thank you for listening.
- Blog: https://www.tameri.com/autisticme/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/autisticme/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/autisticme
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CSWyatt
- Podcast: https://autisticme.libsyn.com/