How do you recall Christmas Day in your early twenties? Perhaps you remember an in-depth, wine-fuelled interrogation of your love life by extended family members. Maybe it’s the sheer luxury of coming home from your dingy rental flat to a glorious homemade feast – a welcome contrast to your usual fare of Sainsbury’s ready meals and beans on toast.
When you are 21 with profound autism, like my brother Ciaran, Christmas is far less traditional. A key attribute of some autistic people is exacerbated senses, which can often lead to a ‘sensory meltdown’ as Christmas nears. Shops become no-go zones thanks to huge crowds and loud Christmas music, Christmas crackers are out of the question, and a turkey dinner is replaced with peanut butter sandwiches.
Our official preparations for Christmas begin in November. This is when many parents might buy their kids an advent calendar to initiate the festive excitement. In my house, this is when my mother buys a gigantic sheet of A1 paper and hand draws large squares for each date between then and December 25th, hanging it on the wall by the front door and including every minute detail she can think of. With Ciaran, you see, preparation is crucial.
Fast forward about 50 days and we’ve made it to Christmas Eve. Most 21-year olds are in the pub with friends until the early hours. Others are being dragged to midnight mass by their parents. In my house, we’re preparing for Santa.
Yes, you heard me right – my brother and I, both in our twenties, are setting a glass of whiskey and some mince pies out by the fireplace. We place our stockings at the end of our beds and wait for them to be filled, anticipating the footstep-shaped icing sugar outlines my parents will have staged in the living room by the morning.
Autism for many means that your life is centred around routine. In this case, it is about keeping up false pretences. If this means that I will still be getting piles of Lindor stuffed in my childhood stocking from Santa at 30, then this is a privilege that I can’t complain about.
When I wake up on Christmas morning Ciaran has already opened his NOW That’s What I Call Music CDs. He has been making his collection for years and lines them up in chronological order on a shelf in his room. This is, perhaps, another manifestation of routine – or maybe he just really likes terrible pop music.
A morning of listening to Take That loudly on repeat from Ciaran’s room then brings us to the trials and tribulations of Christmas dinner. Perhaps you can relate. You may be imagining some one spilling champagne over the roast potatoes, or the family dog demolishing the roast ham, but for us the real struggle comes as we prompt Ciaran to come out of his room and sit at the dinner table in an attempt at normality. As we sit
down to eat our turkey feast, Ciaran sits reluctantly at the top of the table eating peanut butter sandwiches and drinking Robinson’s juice. Hearing ‘Back For Good’ on loop is far from the traditional soundtrack to Christmas dinner. But it is our normal, and I’d take it over Michael Bublé if it allows us to sit together as a family on December 25th each year.
As 2020’s festive season approaches, there is a lot of emphasis on whether Christmas this year will involve this notion of ‘normal’. If it is any consolation, with over 1% of the UK’s population believed to have autism, there are many families like mine and many people like Ciaran who have never known a traditional Christmas.
You can take our word for it – Christmas doesn’t need to be ‘normal’ to be filled with joy, laughter and great memories. After all, ‘normal’ is boring.
Words by Blathnaid Corless
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