My favourite childhood memories are all centred around Christmas: seeing family, playing silly games, gorging on mince pies.
Nothing transports me back to being a boy more than David Bowie narrating the opening of The Snowman, nor anything more likely to make me cry than the ending.
I dreamed of making Christmas the centrepiece of our family too – of making it a time of magic and joy for my own children.
Except our Christmases never really lived up to those childhood memories of Santa, stockings and snow.
Nowhere were the challenges of Elliott’s learning disabilities more pronounced than at Christmas.
There would be no Christmas carols for the boy who could not speak. There would be no nativity plays for the boy who could not tolerate the noise of an assembly. There would be no Christmas cards for the boy who could neither read nor write.
Over the decade that followed, our Christmases became a difficult balance between attempting normality for Elliott’s younger siblings and including him as much as possible.
Christmas started to creep in at the edges. It began with the festive lighting. Elliott began to notice the gaudy lights on many houses
This was easier said than done.
Elliott never grasped the concept of a present, let alone unwrapping it. If he isn’t already interested in something, no amount of shiny wrapping paper is going to make him excited.
Christmas became something that happened around Elliott. He couldn’t really understand what was happening, why the house was full, why the food was different and why the normal patterns of his life were on hold.
Family fracture
Elliott managed this by taking himself to his room, switching off the lights and retreating to a world of Mr Tumble.
Rather than a time for coming together, Christmas was a time where the fractures in our family felt more pronounced than ever.
We fell into a Christmas morning routine of getting up early with our two younger children and doing their presents before Elliott woke up.
It allowed them to be as excited as they wanted to be and meant that we could, literally, parcel Elliott’s presents throughout the day.
Except, one Christmas morning in 2021, Elliot didn’t wake up after the other children had opened their presents.
He couldn’t be roused.
His face was purple.
His eyes refused to open.
His breathing was shallow.
For Christmas that year, Santa had brought Elliott a seizure.
It took all day for Elliott to came round. Groggy and fragile, Elliott did not know it was Christmas time at all.
We felt cursed. There seemed to be no element of Christmas that our family could enjoy.
But something magical has started to happen over the 19 years of Elliott’s life – Christmas had started to creep in at the edges.
It began with Christmas lights. The first part of the festive season Elliott began to notice were the gaudy lights that festooned the outside of so many houses.
It became a December tradition to drive around the towns and villages of Hertfordshire in search of the brightest Christmas lights.
From there, it moved to Christmas songs. Elliott managed to find himself a Christmas playlist on YouTube. He’s never left it.
Mariah all August has never sounded so sweet in a house that used to be starved of Christmas songs.
Then, last Christmas – the greatest joy of all – Elliott joined us for Christmas dinner. Sat round the table with his brother and sister and grandparents. He tucked into the turkey with everyone else.
It was a level of inclusion that we could have only dreamed of in the years when Elliott couldn’t tolerate being in the same room as so many people, let alone enjoying the same food.
You can talk of Christmas miracles all you like but all my family being in that room, enjoying that meal, wearing those silly little crowns was the greatest Christmas gift of all.
