It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Hear me out.  I know that the holidays seem loaded with landmines for special kids.  They bring questions, uncertainties, health or emotional crises, party/travel/gift anxieties, or even uncomfortable interactions with well-intentioned family members. I’ve been there, friend, my special guy is about to experience all the highs and lows of his sixteenth Christmas.  

All the exceptions accounted for, I still love holiday time more than any other for one reason: SANTA CLAUS FOREVER! I think one of my top three favorite things about being a special mom is that Santa Claus comes to my house every Christmas morning. Nicolas is fifteen years old, and this year when he again sits with (a shorter than him) Santa, and nervously discusses toys he wants, his eyes will reflect awe, his heart a-flutter, and his whole being will confidently know that Santa is real, and is coming to our house this year on Christmas eve!

So here’s my Christmas advice to all the special parents reading this…..enjoy the innocence of your child this holiday season. However much they understand or experience, soak that in and hold it tight. Put all the challenges in their appropriate place.  Honestly, holidays or not, we’re still gonna have meltdowns, difficulties, and unexpected bumps in the road, right? So since that’s just normal life, roll with it this holiday season.  That way you’ll have time to breathe in the special moments, whatever they are for your child. Please don’t overlook the wonder of it all. Special families may not have a lot that seems to be in the column of “better than” a typical family, but Christmas is definitely a win for us.  My special child always reminds me of the pure joy of Christmas. He reminds me that believing as a small child is the way we are all expected to believe, always. Not in Santa, but in the reason Santa spreads gifts all over the world! I see that played out each year and am so wonderfully reminded of the special gift within. I get teary-eyed every year when I get to re-explain that because it is Jesus’ birthday, a sweet old man in the North Pole gives a gift to every child in the world. And that it is why we give gifts to each other, and to strangers. It’s why we sing songs and have parties. Nicolas definitely “gets” the magic of this season, he feels it and enjoys it deeply.  I can’t help but be aware  that I should be experiencing Christmas a lot more like Nick does.

Santa Claus is such a fleeting moment in most kids lives, it seems shorter and shorter these days.  But we get Santa every year and it’s truthfully the best morning of all the other 364.  Yeah, by then end of that same day there have usually been one or two “issues” but the other 364 have those anyways.   No other day has the Santa moment.  Winner.  Every time.  

“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11