Christmas and Autism

The good, the bad, and the ugly Christmas jumpers?

Apart from looking forward to presents, I only recall a few things about my childhood Christmases. I know they were pretty boring, and I’d have to eat foods that I hated. It was always the same repeats on TV and not much choice of children’s programmes, but we only had four channels back then. My dad would get drunk, but that wasn’t much different from the rest of the time, although he did cut down his drinking when I was around 9 or 10. My older sister and I would still have to be wary of his temper.

However, as an adult, things got a little better, particularly after my younger brother and sister were born, and when I wasn’t living at home. I also made peace with how my dad had treated me as a child, at least in the sense that I don’t carry the anger I had toward him. I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t affected me though.

Sometimes I would stay over at my parents’ house from Christmas Eve until the day after Boxing Day when the trains were running again. A few times, I stayed until the 2^nd of January.

I loved getting to spend time with my younger sister, and I miss that. We both have different lives now. We’re both married, she has two children, and our dad passed away almost nine years ago, so Mum downsized. All of that means no more long Christmas holidays spent together, because there is no room to stay over, and we have separate lives now.

But after several Christmases spent in hotels in Bradford or near my husband’s family in Stretford, I’m about to spend my second Christmas Day at home with just my husband. Last year, I cooked us a nice breakfast, then we went for a walk in the local woods, came back and had a nap because we felt a bit off, then I cooked us a late dinner and we watched a Christmas film and had drinks. It might sound boring to some, but I thought it was perfect.

I’ve definitely started to love Christmas more as a grown-up than when I was a child. There are a few reasons for that.

Since becoming a freelance writer in 2019, I often had too much work or not enough so took on anything and everything I was offered. Christmas became the only time I knew for sure that I wouldn’t be working, so I had to accept that because I had no choice. I even looked forward to the enforced rest, because I’d happily work through most other holidays if the work was available and I worked for clients from other countries who don’t have the same bank holidays as us. Even now that I don’t get as much work, it’s still one of the only times I know for sure that I won’t be working, and it’s definitely the most amount of time I spend not working or looking for work.

Another reason is, as I’ve recently realised and started to accept that I’m autistic, I think my unmasked self is much younger than my actual age, so I can naturally be quite childish. Christmas gives me the chance to wear fun Christmas jumpers and other clothing and generally act a bit more childish, with much less judgment than I would get the rest of the year.

Finally, and I know this might sound silly (or sappy), but my dad got really into Christmas, he loved adding more indoor and outdoor decorations each year, stocking up on food and drink, cooking (and I was a little less fussy about my food by then), and we always went out for a meal as a family and to the cinema afterwards on Christmas eve. At the risk of sounding like a bad Hallmark film, I feel like I’m remembering the happier things about my dad when I celebrate Christmas, even if it is often in my own ‘antisocial’ way. He was much better with people than I am.

I know there are difficult things about Christmas for autistic people. Personally, I hate the crowds in the city centre and the markets, etc, and I avoid them as much as possible. If I’m overwhelmed by other things, then the fabrics on some Christmas jumpers can feel uncomfortable, but I usually wear a thin cotton top underneath these jumpers. This makes them easier to wear.

Sometimes I feel like there is a ticking clock over my head, because autistic people have a lower life expectancy, so I just want to make happy memories while I’m here, however long that might be.

I don’t just want to talk about my own views and experiences of Christmas though. I know all autistic people are different. That’s why I asked Joe to write some of his thoughts about Christmas.

Joe Tetley

See, I don’t completely hate Christmas. Spending time with my significant other is precious and Christmas is one time where, if we are at home for it, we don’t have to go anywhere or do anything unless we want to.

There is a certain wistfulness and nostalgia wrapped up at the end of the year as we approach Christmas. For me though, it feels kind of fake. I’m not sure where it comes from - is it from my childhood or is it from the telly?

My mum loved Christmas. It gave her the chance to be silly, to own a persona that she couldn’t bring out the rest of the year. She would dress up in daft costumes to cheer up the residents where she worked as a care assistant. There would be decorations like on the back door that said ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’ anytime you went near it. Rituals like burning the Advent candle, going to a Christingle service, making mince pies and cheese biscuits.

There were parties, neighbours being overly friendly with each other, adults getting tipsy and sometimes arguing. Mum would try to host one every year and sometimes they’d have friends over on New Year’s Eve as well, push back the sofas and dance.

It all needed to be perfect though - it never was. Inevitably, something would go wrong, whether it was lumpy gravy, somebody saying the wrong thing, two of us arguing, or just the result of being trapped in the same house with people through accident of birth. Mum would get upset and storm off, usually upstairs, slamming all the doors on the way. Sometimes, she would drive off somewhere remote near the sea, staring out at the waves.

Then there were the arguments about the telly. Should it be on or off? My sisters dictating that we have to watch Top of the Pops, and Dad insisting on silence for the Queen’s speech. Of course there are the soaps, utterly depressing with some kind of disaster designed to shock. Many years later, those Christmas specials made me quit soaps altogether.

As a kid - the youngest of 4, who didn’t start speaking until I was 3, I was happy on my own or sitting on the kitchen floor watching the washing machine go round, I felt, to a certain extent like an observer. Having to be social, observe weird seasonal routines and etiquette that really don’t make any sense. I remember various people saying phrases like ‘don’t get that out now’, ‘oh really, that’s interesting’, ‘come and talk to….’, ‘you need to come and do this’, ‘can’t you take that upstairs and play with it’.

It’s sometimes not much different now, feeling like you have to join in with work drinks, games, a party, Christmas quizzes, jumpers, and hats. ‘It’s just a bit of fun’, and if you don’t join in, you’re painted as ‘miserable’, ‘a killjoy’, ‘a grinch’, ‘scrooge’.

It makes a lot of sense to have something cheery and comforting in the midwinter. It’s just, not everybody’s idea of what that means is the same.