Oh Christmas Tree...

So we do not put up a Christmas tree... and the stories to support that decision are... lengthy.

Oh, I tried!  When we were first married, I SOOOO wanted a tree, to feel like I was in my OWN house.  And I told my husband "we are NOT going to alternate years between parents! - we are building our OWN traditions!"  I was VERY afraid of being forced into the "every-other-year" thing after kids came - other holidays we travel, but NOT Christmas... kinda.

In reality, it's when we could get off work - so we didn't really have trees because we would be with one set of parents before the holiday and the other immediately afterwards - home for only 24 hours... traveling from one coast (California) to the other (Maryland)... it just wasn't practical or safe to have a tree (I grew up in CA - the fire dangers of a dry tree are WELL known to me!).

Then, kids came.  I was gonna do this thing AT HOME, no compromise.  One year I got a tree too big to get in the house - had to saw off most of the top.  One year, I never got it IN the house, just TO the house - put it in the dog's water bowl to keep wet - and it FROZE in there - had a BIG block of ice at the base I couldn't get in the tree stand, so we just embedded it in a snow bank outside.  The kids & I used spatulas to cover it in peanut butter and threw bird seed on it for the birds.  We cannot find our decorations anyhow.  They are HERE, somewhere, but too well stored to be accessible... and it is just TOO much work to rearrange all my crap for just one month anyhow.

And winter is a HARD time for us.  I personally have STRUGGLED with the seasonal affective disorder, BIG TIME - I grew up in Southern California!!!! we don't have this many dreary days back-to-back!  I struggle.  It was REALLY apparent in my son though...  the winter he turned 3, he lost the ability to speak... we went for 3 months with SEVERE stuttering and major head banging.  It was SCARY.  The next winter he developed weeping lesions on his face (has a scar) for months.  The next winter, we just took him out of school for the month of December - road tripped to Las Vegas - and he was AWESOME, but the that spring saw the HSP (auto-immune rash)...  The next winter was last year - the year we took him out to homeschool... the winter we found out how bad the bullying was, how he had been restrained without our knowledge, that he was having nightmares from his school experience... it was a time of difficult healing for us.  This winter has brought a much lowered frustration threshold - when the OT told us last month to "get that kid medicated" because he is reacting in such a way we cannot see any triggers, and he is getting violent...

I have always argued that the Holidays are VERY difficult for him. We go from SCARY Halloween black & orange, to Thanksgiving travelling (it is his grandfather's birthday) and immediately into new music on the radio and Red & green in ALL the stores.  The TV shows change, the radio changes, the stores look different, the classroom schedules are TOTALLY disrupted (not as big a problem for us now)... I can understand where he'd be NOT OK.  And the more I reached out to the Autism community, the more I saw that this was pretty common behavior.  

I do also think that with my son's "extra sensitivity" that the general emotional agitation of the season is a problem for him too.  Everyone you meet and interact with is emotionally charged, one way or the other, over upholding or creating traditions, or helping others be happy, or religious zeal... I can only IMAGINE how overwhelmed he must feel from all quarters, ALL the time!!!!  That was part of why we took off and road tripped - it would only be us, trapped in a car, driving across an empty dessert...

So I decided to strive to keep things "normal"/ "ordinary" at home, to just let this be the place it is - the place where we all just let it go and be our odd selves, where we find ways to live together as we grow.

BUT - my daughter's birthday is Christmas day...
So we really CAN'T ignore it!!!

So I hit upon this idea last year.  It sorta worked, so I am gonna try it again this year.  I find it takes a while for things to kinds gel into a workable tradition...

The year I froze the tree to the dog's bowl, I just cut a tree out of wrapping paper, and we tapped it up to the wall, and stickered the holy bejeezus out of it - so we could have a place for presents.  The whole big paper (and stickers) kept falling down - there is just not enough tape in the universe, people...

So last year we decided to put our tree up a little at a time... with paper hands.  We cut out a few hands (ours) every day, and taped them up in a BIG triangle, and prayed for each hand... either for someone whose name we wrote on it, or for something we needed help with (as I said, it was a healing time for us)...and when others gave us hands, we prayed for them too.  There were whales and dogs prayed for, and aunts and uncles, and sleep and safety...

Our "tree" never got big, but it was enough.  As a matter of fact, I have not taken it down.  Partly because I just didn't "get to it", but partly because, I really do NOT want to lose the memories and prayers we offered, the healing that we found, the kind of ritual and ceremony we built for ourselves that reminds us of the "reason for the season" and all the people that love us, through think and thin - the community that supported us when we were in a dark time...

We will ask our family and friends for hand prints again this year.  And we will make more ourselves, and we will offer prayers of thanksgiving and petition.  And I bet I will be too "lazy" to take it down again... That's gonna be a BITCH to scrap book in about 10 years (or less)...