I decided to write this, and share it with my family and friends as well my online friends to let you know what it's like at my house around the holidays.
If you don't want to know, the please turn away now it gets worse you can't turn back.
      December comes around, I do my best to make sure to keep our lives as holiday neutral as possible. For once in my life I am actually trying to be excited to be celebrating Christmas. My anxiety is uncommonly well calm. I am able to cope better than usual. The sucky thing is that my child  doesn't know how to process the excitement. I tend to understand that a little as a kid I hated Christmas. Loud Christmas music blasting through the house. A very bright and visually stimulating Christmas tree.  My body didn't know how to process it. I wanted to be excited I just didn't know how to cope with it. I spent a lot of time in my room in the month of December. My poor parents had no idea what was going on. They just thought I hated Christmas. Looking back, I realize my dad was a little like me too. He did a lot of his shopping Christmas eve. Hardly anyone was at the mom that day and it was quiet. I was grateful for the time my dad would take me out with him. We would usually get coffee together or a treat. It was one of the only times I actually liked Christmas.

  Don't get me wrong, my parents are amazing. They didn't know about Sensory Processing Disorder but they did everything they could to make sure I was okay. I was allowed to come to Christmas dinner late with my dad. I was allowed to leave the table early. I was also allowed to come home early when I got older.  I wanted nothing more than to just stay with my parents and my brother on Christmas morning and I loved that time. M parents always went out of the way to make sure we had an amazing holiday and always asked before they tried to change things each year.

 Sensory Processing Disorder is not Fun, it makes things really messed up for the holidays. neural typical people look at the holidays and try to invent fun. They like flashy lights, and movie nights. They try to make things a little more fun than normal. We don't like that. We want things the same. We want to eat the time we usually eat, we like lights but only soft ones. (well that's e anyway. Abby seems to prefer bright ones.) We like Christmas and being with people. We like it quiet and planned out as much as we can. Some people find it rude that we go into quiet rooms and hide when things get loud, but we do it to survive. We aren't mad at anyone, we aren't upset. We need that quit time. We also don't plan a thousand things to do at Christmas time and sometimes we can only do one party once a week. Which is okay for me because well I just don't have many places to go anymore. Due to me, and my child's resistance to all things social. People just stopped asking, Friends just went away.
    At Christmas time I have seen many a kid screaming and throwing fits in grocery and toy stores. We get excited but they don't get it. They know the schedule is different, they know we eat at different times. There are weird lights all over everything. And then mom and dad throw you on a lap of a dude with a beard. ( guess it's okay though cause his suit is warm and fuzzy.) He seems to be nice, but hey mom I don't know this dude. Don't get me wrong but know that kids have it figured our that store Santa is not the real one. If the real one is like this, then hey I don't like him.

Please be a bit more kind to us right now, we are trying to cope. We may make your life a living nightmare all of December but realize we still love you. We still want to be with you. Give us some extra space and realize this isn't our normal. To us Chistmas is something we really don't understand. Plase realize that us parents are probably getting little to no sleep. So please give us some grace. Realize my head is fuzzy my jaws hurt from gritting my teeth at night. I am coping very well, but alas my child is not. I am fighting to keep things as "normal" as I can but it's hard. We as many other parents are trying to find the right way to pay for presents, the right way no to go to crazy buying too many. I am thinking we need a midnight trip to Walmart to avoid some crowds. (aybe that would work)
   We have been working hard at this, We are trying to be respectful. I beg again please be kind and respectful to us. Don't think we don't like you, and please don't stop asking us to come over. WE can go to parties we just did to do it on our terms.