An Autistic Christmas.

A slightly different perspective.

An Autistic Christmas.

What he struggled to comprehend was why placing flashing lights on a plastic tree made his mother smile and laugh. She would wrap gifts in boxes with coloured paper and pretend that she didn’t know what was in them.

He would smile when she smiled. He learned this response made her happy, but her behaviour at Christmas was very difficult to understand. Many years before, she had persuaded him a strangely dressed man would come into his room in the night and leave gifts. She should have known better; he didn’t like meeting new people. She cancelled the visit after he sat in his room for an hour rocking with fear and frustration.

She delivered the gifts instead, but still pretended that she never knew what was inside and whooped with glee when she or he opened them. He felt sorry for her. She had to perform these strange rituals to enjoy herself. He always felt lost during these affairs and tried to slip away into another room. He opened her gifts and folded the paper for another day, but she got annoyed and told him to tear it up. What a waste after all that effort. He did as he was asked so as to please her, and opened his gifts. He never understood why he needed most of the items provided. They were clearly intended to please him, but he didn’t need them. One year she gave him a pen which he found very pleasing, he could use a pen.

Other parts of Christmas also bewildered him. The excess of food and drink for example. His mother was always short of money, yet she would spend more than she had because it was what she called ‘tradition.’ If it was traditional to get into debt when you had no money, then this Christmas thing was not a good idea.

He read about the origins of these strange celebrations online and discovered a confusion of ancient rituals that had been blended over thousands of years. These included a very old tradition on welcoming the return of the sun in the northern hemisphere on the shortest day of the year called the winter solstice, a Roman celebration called Saturnalia, another Roman celebration about a boy that was born of a virgin mother. That sounded like artificial insemination to him. A Viking God named Odin who rode an eight-legged horse across the sky, a Turkish Saint who gave gifts to the poor, and even a medieval ceremony that chased evil spirits out of the fruit orchards in winter by singing, dancing, or wassailing to ensure a good harvest next year. This was all very strange, but despite the heavy spending everyone seemed to think it was a good idea.

His cousins were coming to visit. He didn’t look forward to that. They would ask him to help them on their computers but only so they could speak to other people. Why would you speak to other people on a computer when you are visiting someone’s home? Why not speak to the people in the room?

They didn’t speak to him much. He never understood what they were talking about, and they thought he was stupid. It wasn’t he who was talking nonsense and laughing at someone on TikTok who had fallen over and hurt themselves. They called him ‘Weird.’ He loved that word. He said it out loud Weird.’ Sometimes they said ‘Weirdo’ which seemd to have a slightly different inflection but he liked it anyway. It was nice to have a tag or nickname.

They were weird, they would drink alcohol, a chemical that google said was ‘poisonous’ and would send them crazy. That was the time for hiding in his room until the madness calmed down or until they went home, or off to bed. Then he would sneak downstairs and have a small slice of cake or some chocolate and listen to some music. He liked music, not the jingles and the bouncy carols but the beautiful, soft hymns whose rhythms and vibrations made him cry. He wasn’t sure why he cried but it just made him feel good and sad. That was weird!

To him Christmas was a time when his family got crazy and pretended to like one another. They gave pointless gifts and often argued about things that had happened before he was born. He might be autistic, but he wasn’t stupid, and he certainly wasn’t as weird as they were.

‘Merry Christmas Colin.’

‘Oh yes mum, er, merry Christmas to you too.’

‘Look what I have got you this year.’

There was no paper just an open box. He reached inside and lifted a small furry bundle not much larger than his hand.

‘We found her. Apart from injections she never cost us anything. Her mother abandoned her.’

The tiny white kitten with a black face, meowed, lifted her tail, and walked up his arm, across his shoulder and sat beside his neck.

‘She can stay’ he said and smiled, ‘I need the box.’

Happy Christmas!

Robin Horsfall

Who Dares Shares.