Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. In the Nonamus house, we stay home. We don't go to the big family dinners, or see all 500 relatives we haven't seen in ages. We stay home, we make cinnamon rolls, a big turkey dinner, and we just enjoy the day- usually in our PJ's still.
When Minion 3 was little, we admitted defeat. Big gatherings were too hard to do- not just for us, but for the kids. Minion 2 already had his issues with crowds, but we plugged along and did them anyway. By the time M3 was about 2, and the same issues started to crop up, we just gave up.
Holiday gatherings were very important to me- every major holiday meant going to my Grandma's house for dinner with all of the cousins. I cherished it. When the kids were little, the gatherings became very stressful. The kids hated crowds, and it was melt down city when they were being passed from one person to the next, with kids all up in their faces.
When you have a child with Asperger's Syndrome, you have a child who does not like change, big crowds, and they tend to melt down when things are going poorly for them. Some might call it a temper tantrum, but there's a big difference in a temper tantrum that a neurotypical kid might have, say over not getting something at the store, and a melt down that an Aspie might have when their systems are just too over loaded, and they can't process any of it.
In a large family gathering, you're bound to have:
A lot of people - and if you're a child, that's a lot of tall people.
Noise - everyone is talking, the TV or radio might be going, and it's a lot to process.
Kids - a lot of children who probably don't understand that your child doesn't want you right in their face, or dragging them around from room to room to play.
New schedules - Is lunch at noon? Three? Do you eat at the same time you would at home? Usually not, which means that schedule sensitive kids are thrown out of wack, and wondering why they can't eat now.
New foods - There are a lot of foods on the table, and a lot of Aspie kids have... shall we say "sensitive" pallets. My youngest, for instance, won't eat something new, period. If she's never tried it, she's not going to try it. I know one child who only eats food of a specific color. It's not at all unusual for an Aspie to be highly picky when it comes to the foods they'll eat, so a large table filled with odd food is usually not what they want to see.
Chaos - My family is not overly large, but it's big enough. You have the grandparents, who have 4 kids. 2 of those 4 are married, making it 6 people. Of those 6 people, you have 8 grand kids. Of those 8 grand kids, 5 are either married, or have a long term SO, making it 13. Of those 13, there are 12 great grand children. So, if everyone were to show up at a family get together, that's 33 people. In a house. Mostly in 3 rooms- the kitchen, dining room, and living room.
That's a lot of people. A lot of noise, a lot of movement, a lot of unknowns.
All of that equals a lot of melting down. So, we just stopped doing it. We no longer go anywhere for Thanksgiving or Easter. Christmas is a bit more unavoidable, and of course, there are even more places to go on Christmas.
Living over an hour from any of our relatives makes planning Christmas even more "fun".
On my side of the family, of course, are divorces. I have a step-mom and a step-dad. With that comes additional get togethers. Over the past 3 years, we have perfected it.
Once my step-mom's family plans their large get together, we plan our small ones. This year, it'll go like this:
Saturday morning, pack up 2 Micromachine cars, separate the kids, and get in. (Last year, we took 1 car- too much stuff, too many people). We drive about 75 minutes to my dad's house, where we usually meet up with my brother, his SO, and their 2 kids. My dad's house is SMALL. So, we squeeze 11 people into his tiny house (his kitchen is so small, it's crowded if 2 people are in there). We eat breakfast, and do gifts, then we all get in the cars, and head over to my grandma's family gathering (this being my step-mom's side).
That's usually held in a Church, because we're too big to contain in a house. If I counted right, with children, grand children, great grand children, and now 1 brand new Great Great Granddaughter, there are 48 people. That's not counting new SO's I don't know about, and the odd extended family.
We stay at the Church for a couple of house, then our family and my brother's family heads up north to my Mom's house. There, we have my mom & step mom, my 2 brother's with their SO's, and combined 3 kids, my sister and her 2 kids, plus me, spouse, and 3 more kids. It gets crowded.
Finally, everyone leaves- we spend the night, then drive another 90 minutes or so further up north to Spouse's family, where we do it all in 1 stop. Aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, etc.
It means 1 very busy day, but gets it all over and done with, and leaves us sitting home and relaxing on Christmas day.
Here's hoping we don't get some massive snow storm that day. That's happened twice, which left us without doing Christmas with my Mom one year, heading up north ON Chirstmas day the same year, and not having Christmas with my Dad a whole different year.
