Last year’s Christmas was our first one with WonderGIRL and WonderBOY and we definitely learned a lot. While Scott and I absolutely loved the magic that comes with celebrating this special time with little ones (melt my heart the picture above reading on Christmas Eve), we hit some hard road bumps that now we get to tweak for Christmas part 2.0 with Team Brave Dinosaurs. When inviting kids with trauma into your home, you are also inviting their own family traditions, gift-giving mindsets, and some emotional baggage from hard family get-togethers in as well. WG in particular has some anniversary trauma around Christmas time that really spikes her anxiety and mood swings – this was highlighted by her having to testify about this holiday season this past Spring. We try to be very mindful with our time, our own traditions, and how we set up holiday get-togethers to best set them up for success and to help all of us stay focused on “the reason for the season” during these busy weeks.
THE GIFTS
Gift-giving has been used very manipulatively with our little ones in the past. Wrapped gifts were given after traumatic events to rebuild false trust and apologies that never resulted in changed behavior. WG and WB were inundated with gifts and “stuff” without the love and trust that is supposed to accompany those same gifts. We also knew that anticipation of gifts and surprises are hard for them – the same rush of excitement we get when we feel suspense, their little bodies and brains read as danger and fear and can cause some pretty serious outbursts and behavior. We decided to tell them ahead of time that they were getting 4 gifts from us (what to read, need, wear, want) and a small gift on Christmas Eve. This alleviated the anticipation with realistic expectations of Christmas morning. We also put out most of their presents ahead of time to avoid sneaking around, snooping, etc. They also completely believe that we have traps set up (we love some good Spy Kids action) around the house and tree to catch them snooping.
Scott and I have always loved buying gifts for families in need during this holiday season. We would take the money normally spent on each other and use that towards “sponsoring” a family. On Christmas morning, we open sweet and creative love notes to each other that I treasure re-reading each year. We hoped that the kiddos would buy into this tradition and so they got to write us letters last year and they were SO flippin’ adorable. This also took away any pressure or burden for them to gift us anything as we explained we had everything we needed in each other (you get to be that cheesy with kiddos in your house during holiday season right????).
While we had our little family of 4 COVERED as far as gifts, we also had to carefully navigate how to ask our families to respect the childrens’ unique needs and that big toy-related gifts were not what WE wanted for their holiday season. Our parents and siblings were very respectful (for the most part) of our request – WG and WB were showered with cool magazine and kit subscriptions, gymnastics lessons, and other cool experiences they got to do with the people they have come to love the most in our world. What I especially loved about these “experience” gifts was that the holiday joy and love was spread out throughout the year and when we would complete them, WG and WB would get to appreciate the person and the gift so much more! This blog post does a wonderful job explaining how to request a more simple Christmas and has an awesome list of non-toy related gifts you can pass on to loved ones.
OUR TIME
Everything gets squeezed into the schedule during December doesn’t it? Christmas programs, church events, birthday parties and belt testing for Tae Kwon Do…..my planners really earn their stripes during this busy time of year. And while personally, I absolutely LOVE the social parts and the reunions – my family (hubby included) really don’t deal well with such a busy schedule. I try to spread our events out as evenly as I can and I say NO to many things (I believe the appropriate hashtag here would be #sorrynotsorry).
What I have also found useful in event planning is to not tell the kiddos far in advance what we’re doing. Again, the anticipation of a fun event for them can often be twisted around in their brains/hearts and can dramatically spike their behavior in the wrong direction. Instead we try to have very low-key mornings the day of and then with an hour to go until an event, we start getting ready and dressed and off we go! Oftentimes, other adults will ask WG or WB, “Are you getting excited for __________ (insert fun event here)?” and they will have such a cute, but blank expressions because we haven’t really told them anything yet. And for us, that’s what works. Until it might not this year…..then the countdown to an even better TBD Christmas 3.0 is on!!!!
Merry Christmas friends – thank you for reading and supporting our little clan!!!