Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukka, the Festival of Alcyone or Yule, you know this materialistic time of year is really hard on special needs kids. At our house we have learned that it's just too hard to keep hands off of presents so the tree shall remain present free (at least for those people named McKenna) until Christmas morning. Magically they will all appear! Safely hidden well away in various sneaky places outside of our household until then! We learned this the hard way over the years! Can you say unwrapped early??? Very, very early?
Well, it is hard as a child to learn patience, but patience seems to be a never-quite reaching thing in this household! The excitement of the Season can be quite the unraveling, in fact. So we try very hard not to focus on the date and to distract as often as possible. There does seem to be some creative awesomeness to her and making her presents for each person has seemed to distract her from her usual over-obsession.
Perhaps there is hope! For one thing, we've always taught that Jesus rocks but that Christians tend not to always be the best example of the MAN.....We are spiritual and believe in God(s) (dess) (desses)!!! But we have been trying very hard to teach all faiths and rituals to Mac. We believe that if we raise her to be Spiritual that she will choose the best path for herself amongst one or several religious ideologies..... on her own. I have been trying to share memories of my times with friends and church with her......and she knows most of my issues with the religion I grew up observing. I'm glad that she can "try on" ideas and celebrations to see what she likes. And by teaching her several different religious tenets we can distract her further from remembering the date of the traditional observation which will bring the family together for gift giving!
Perhaps in her rituals she will begin to understand the enormity of choices she has in Worship. Perhaps teaching compassion as opposed to a fixed ideology will serve her better than my religion served me. I believe she will always have faith and will find her way herself. And the presents will stay hidden and wrapped this year!
Happy personal observance month! Enjoy your family no matter what!
Love this!!
ReplyDeleteI had to wander many years to be this observant, but you "got there" way before I did. Love you