The Ghost of Christmas Past

May you be blessed with the bounty of food, family, and friends, but not too much.

Memories of Christmas Past are flying at me, whether I like it or not, through Facebook’s helpful reminders of my old posts. At the time, those posts were carefully curated to show us in our best moments — the young boys in matching GAP sweaters, the Christmas tree adorned in Crate and Barrel ornaments, a feast of fishes on the dining room table for Christmas Eve, the grown-ups in their nicest clothes. But truth is, we were a mess.

We were just a few years away from the poverty years; starting a family, when were both still working our dissertations was not the optimal situation. I was teaching at the local state college. I still haven’t recovered from the semester when I taught four classes with three new preps. I created Christmas cards with long letters. I baked cookies and sent them to the aunties. I stretched every dollar to assemble the most thoughtful stocking stuffers for the kids. I managed guests and a seven course fishy Italian meal for 15 to 20 people. I photographed every moment and posted pictures on social media. I bought gifts for bus drivers, teachers, and therapists.

Looking at those old pictures, I see what others might miss — the exhaustion lurking around that perfect Christmas tree. On top of the jobs and the long to-do lists, I was managing an autistic son, who was undiagnosed and untreated until age five. Before he starting talking at age three or four, he mostly screamed to communicate. His sensory system, which was much finer tuned that typical people, went off the charts with the scratchy GAP sweaters, the odd food smells in the kitchen, and the odors of church. He couldn’t be easily corralled into Christmas Perfection on the lap of a scary Santa.

I wish that I had cared less about nice pictures and pleasing others. I wish that I had done less and savored the moments more. But I was trying to do it all, to make everyone happy, while minimizing our difficulties. I hope that today’s autism parents, twenty years later, are relishing their weirdness. I hope all parents lower expectations.

Today, things are much easier. Ian has outgrown those sensitivities and actually “passes” as a neurotypical young man most days now. Gifts for the boys have been simplified to clothes and gift cards, requiring little effort. I no longer bother with cards and boxes of cookies to the aunties. I’m still making a big feast on Christmas Eve with 18 guests this year, but it’s a shorter menu. Both Steve and I work less and have saner schedules.

Simplicity is a gift. Quiet is a gift. Time is a gift. As I get older, I find that I treasure these gifts more than any others, because they are precious and rare and make me the happiest.

As we head into the (Christian) holiday season, I hope that you, too, are blessed with the bounty of food, family and friends, but not too much of those things. I hope that you also find moments of silence to rest and reflect.

Pictures: These are NOT the pictures that I shared on Facebook. These are less flattering shots of the family that were somehow never deleted from my photo database.

Jesus Stinks (an excerpt of a project that was never finished)

At age three, Ian’s sensory system suddenly went awry. One glance at Jonah, a well known gross eater who could shove an entire bagel in his mouth, would cause Ian to gag and vomit on the kitchen table. I would use rolls of paper towels to wipe up the glutenous mess. Eventually, I learned to position a cereal box in between the boys during dinner to shield Ian from the horror of Jonah’s mouth.

One Sunday morning at church, after a priest swung the incense burner too close to our row, Ian yelled “Jesus stinks!” and covered his face with his coat. Red faced and embarrassed, we had to leave many a fishy restaurant as Ian made retching sounds.

Long coats and pants became elements of torture. We used to pin him down to get him into a pair of chinos for Easter mass. Later we gave up and let him wear sweat pants or shorts everywhere.

Foods had to be prepared carefully. Butter had to be spread in a certain way on the toast at breakfast. Foods couldn’t touch each other on the plate. One misstep would mean that that food could end up on the “bad” column for years.

Loud noises were the biggest problem. One year, we took him to a Memorial Day parade. As the other children cheered and waved flags along the streets of our downtown, Ian sat on the curb in misery. His fingers plugged his ears. When the Civil War reenactors stopped in front of us and shot their muskets into the sky, Ian ran away like a scared animal. We chased him through the crowds and held a weeping kid.

For years, we had to obey a long list of rules regarding music. Certain songs were on a no-no list, while some songs were looped to play over and over. Background noises, like an unattended radio or television, irked him. If I left the radio on in the living room to keep me company during the day, he would sneak into the room and turn it off. It was very, very quiet in our home for many years.

Ian experiences the world in a different way than the rest of us, but those strong feelings were strongest when he was younger. His experiences were intensified, like a really bad acid trip. The overhead sun at noon, the smell of fish of cooking on the stove, the noise of a crowd, the gentle rub of jeans on legs, the background fuzz of an out of tune radio, are experiences that most of us ignore and even enjoy, but for Ian, they were painful.