You may have spotted that in the lead up to Christmas we made many videos, clips and posts stressing the importance of doing Christmas YOUR way as a neurodivergent family.
This is a lesson that we learned very early on our Autism parenting journey. It involves us taking cues from what our children need, not whats percieved to be “socially acceptable”.
For example, our kids dont have to hug or kiss relatives, its their choice. They are not expected to look enthusiastic or to respond in the same way as their siblings do. They dont have to wear ” fancy christmas clothes” for photos. They don’t HAVE to eat at the table OR eat the same food, its in their control. Yet, they DID eat with us, they ate Christmas dinner ( no sprouts), they said thanks unprompted ( awesome) and Arch managed to bite his tongue when the odd insensitive comment was thrown out …as they so often do in large family gatherings!
Now we know that there will always be bumps in the road, but I have to say that on the whole, we had a fantastic Christmas! ( athough I ate far too much and weigh day was a nightmare 😉 )
We started our personal Christmas celebrations with our Awesome Archie carol concert with the Salvation Army.
You can find details for this in our previous blogs and on our youtube channel.
We were thrilled with the turnout and so grateful to have the opportunity to host such a wonderful event, thankyou to all involved.
Then that was it… FAMILY TIME!!!
As a family we donttend to buy the children lots of presents , we have always preferred to go on a little break to Centre Parcs . Going away, even for just 3 days meant that we were all together, no work, no distractions, just family fun 🙂
(We will be adding lots of detailed video’s about our trip, hints and tips on our Awesome Archie’s Vacay Vlog channel, click on the link below 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7yhe8J7kwIcbECJOZdBIIg
It really is the highlight of the Christmas season for us.
Just being together with an open fire ( closely monitered of course) lots of fresh air and time as just us. Personally, it’s the silly things like not feeling the need to put on makeup or blowdry my hair because I dont need to wear my ” mask”. We dont have to stick to a rigid schedule and can have much more autonomy than in the real world. There is no opportunity for big home projects at the last minute, something that my ADHD brain LOVES at the most inconvenient times 😉 ITS AWESOME!
We also had the privelege to meet many other neurodivergent families as we left teddies and lego sets around CP for kids to find , which of course had all of our details on and an affirmation message from us all at Awesome Archie. Thankyou to ALL of the wonderful families that we met and I hope that we can be of support to each other moving forward.
If you were one of the lucky teddy or lego gift recipient’s , dont forget to post your picture on instagram …. link here âž¡ https://www.instagram.com/awesome_archie_official/
We hope that however you decided to celebrate , that you had a lovely time and we wish you the happiest of New Years !
We will be be back with you after the new year to start another EXCITING year as Team Awesome Archie. Here’s to 2025!
