Christmas for us could start as soon as the first Santa is spotted in the shops! For the last 5 weeks or so, we have been fighting a daily war for presents – and lots of them!
For the last 2 months all we have heard is: 'I want 10 presents. I want some Thomas, some Lightening, some Transformers and Ben 10."
Zaccy loves everything there is to love about Christmas. He asked us the other day while watching the iconic “Polar Express”; “Can we go to the North Pole?”. When we said that we couldn’t, he insisted that he had to go on the train (one of his many obsessions) and see Santa and the Christmas Tree. I don’t really think he wanted to see Santa (if any visit to the shopping centre Santa’s seem to prove), but I do believe that he simply wants to ride the train and get a ticket…a gold one to be precise!
Every night on the way home he would ask if he was getting presents. Every night before bed he would ask the same thing. Every morning he would get up and start all over again! We would try and explain how many days it was, but even that became difficult. We have an advent calendar which lets us put small chocolates in the pockets of each day. We filled it on the 2nd or 3rd and it normally helps. Zac understands that he gets one each morning or night and is very happy with the arrangement.
One day I noticed it was quiet in the lounge room where the advent calendar was hanging. I also remembered that the small step ladder was in there! When I walked in, I saw him standing on the top step, merrily unwrapping the chocolate Santa from the number 10 pocket. He had been able to eat numbers 3,4 and 5, missed number six and went on to eat 7 to 10. The coloured foil was all over the floor and Zac looked at me and said “Look, number 10!”
To make life even more exciting, his birthday is two weeks after Christmas! Last year almost every day he was showered in presents! On the day after his birthday party, he just expected another load of presents. This year, we have Christmas, then his grandparents are visiting for his actual birthday, then two weeks later we have his official birthday party with his friends! That’s almost a month of presents.
To prepare, we do a big layby to get us through the period. This year, we had paid the layby off early but as we live in tiny house, finding hiding spots for all the presents is really difficult. In the end Renee put them all under the bed and I hid them with whatever I could.
We were in another room and Zac had gone into our bedroom, which is not uncommon (he loves bouncing on our bed), and discovered his presents. Renee raced in and caught him and boy, was he excited. She brought him into the study where she loudly proclaimed that Zac had found some presents, which he obviously wanted. He had only been there a few seconds but was able to recall almost every toy he saw.
I snuck away to move them and hid them in boxes and under clothes and went back and explained I had to get Santa to come and get them and take them back to the North Pole.
“Ohhhh” was what we got and of course he had to go and check it out for himself. Once this was done, surprisingly he was OK with it. The concept of Santa coming in and taking them back seemed utterly believable.
A couple of days later, Zac went missing. Renee found him under the bed where the presents previously were. She asked him what he was doing to which he replied, “I’m being a present.”
We wont be using that spot for next years gift hiding.
It’s so hard to watch your ASD cherub try and understand all the complexities of Christmas and gift-giving but thank God for understanding family and friends who “get” that Zac cares for one thing and one thing only, presents, and lots of them! I love how when he gets a “soft” present he knows its clothes and simply leaves them wrapped or goes “Nope, I don’t want clothes”.
I know that over time he will grasp much better the concepts of giving and getting and that sometimes the old Great Auntie or the dottering old nana simply won’t give you a present!
Hope your Christmas was just as grand as ours was.
