Alex went trick-or-treating for the first time this year. He did great; the first few houses were a little overwhelming with lights, jack-o-lanterns, and Halloween music, but after that he got the hang of it. Sort of. He carried his plastic pumpkin and walked from house to house with me. Every time someone opened their door, he wanted to go inside. We went only to friends and neighbors' houses so he was able to squirm his way inside a few houses while I chatted. Each time, he immediately found light switches and turned them on and off, on and off. He was able to fill in the phrase "trick or treat" when I prompted him and he politely picked out one piece of candy when people offered him the bowl, and put it in his pumpkin. I was proud of him for walking all the way to the end of our street (1/4 mile or so) and back to visit almost every house. He wouldn't wear his hat, but he was still adorable in his police officer costume.
So far, that has been the most "normal" holiday we've had with Alex. Even before I had kids, I looked forward to making memories with my family just as I had when I was growing up. I looked forward to birthdays, Easters, Halloweens and Thanksgivings, and especially Christmases. I loved our traditions around Christmas such as cutting a fresh Christmas tree and decorating it together, playing board games Christmas Eve night, then having monkey bread or cinnamon rolls and opening gifts together in the morning.
We enjoy holidays together but so far with Alex, the excitement has been in the form of me trying and failing to get Alex excited about things. So far, he hasn't shown that he understands when special days or events are coming. I just barely started to sense that he understood something was special about Halloween this week, but I don't think he knew what it was. He was able to adapt and play along when the time came, though, so at least he was able to enjoy the excitement of the day even if he didn't anticipate it.
One strategy I learned from Alex's early intervention providers as well as his school was the use of social stories. Social stories are stories that can be made up for an individual child or situation to help them understand and anticipate. I made a social story for Alex last year to help him recognize family members. It just consisted of some photographs of him with family members and talked about what was happening in the picture. "Alex, Mommy, Daddy, Nanna, and Grandpa are sitting down to have Thanksgiving dinner together." His preschool printed a social story that talked about his classroom and what was going to happen on his first day of school - the bus was going to pick him up, he'd go to his classroom and take off his coat, etc."
This year, I've created a social story to help him anticipate Christmas. I incorporated the religious aspect of it because that is important to my husband and I, but I want him to anticipate the trip to Nanna and Grandpa's (6 hours away) and what we'll do when we get there. He gets extremely thrown off by changes of routine so I'm hoping that preparing him weeks ahead of time for this trip will help. Also, up until his 3rd birthday party, he hadn't grasped the concept of opening gifts. We couldn't get him to tear paper or reach into a gift bag and once the package was opened, he wouldn't pay any attention to it in most cases. I'm hoping to get him excited about it this year. Gifts aren't the most important part about Christmas but I remember the magic and anticipation of Santa Claus's visit when I was a kid, and I want Alex to enjoy that. So far, he loves to read the book and sometimes shouts "Christmas!" He especially loves the pictures of pretty lights - I bet when the lights start coming out he'll get excited and maybe start to connect the dots.
I have to be honest that over the past year or so I've felt disappointed from time to time that Alex doesn't enjoy Holidays as much as many kids do. But I have to remember that it's not about what I want for him. I can share my traditions with him and if he has fun, that's great but he gleans happiness from other things in life too. I need to stop feeling bad that he "misses out" on the excitement of Holidays and remember that he has fun and we enjoy each other over many moments of every day. That is a true blessing.
