Note: an earlier version of this article was originally published on a different platform in December 2023.

These days, there is more content than ever about how to support your autistic child during the festive season. I love this – the more neuroaffirming content, the better!

What mainstream content about autism often forgets to address is the seemingly obvious point that autistic children grow up to be autistic adults. [This is one of the points that will be addressed on Exploring Autism, a podcast I co-host with Julia Jones that will be released early in the new year. If you want to make sure you hear about the podcast when it comes out, subscribe to this newsletter (if you haven't already)].

I found this time of year hard when I was a child and I still find it hard. Challenges I experience these days include: disruption to routine, sensory overload, numerous non-routine social events (often with specific social demands), and extra executive function demands (logistics, presents, food etc).

So I have written a guide to coping with one specific aspect of the festive season, which is gatherings (usually family). My context is Christmas but you can apply it to Hanukkah, Yule or any other gathering. Feel free to take what is relevant and leave the rest.

(Also! You don’t have to identify as autistic to benefit from this guide.)

This guide comes in three parts:

1.     Preparing for the gathering

2.     Coping while at the gathering

3.     Planning your recovery for after the gathering

Part one: Preparing for the event

You don't actually have to go

The world will not spontaneously combust because you decide not to attend a family gathering.

This is definitely a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ situation. I wasn't aware this was the case until several people said to me, "If you find family gatherings so hard, can't you just... not go?"

I still can’t imagine just RSVP-ing ‘no’ to a Christmas family gathering, without an explanation like “I’m giving birth” or “I recently died.” But sometimes even just knowing that I technically am not being forced to be there helps me reframe it as a choice. I could leave at any time.

Get people to advocate for you

The best thing about self-identification of autism is that you can start advocating for your accommodation needs as soon as you accept that you are autistic. (This is something else we discuss in the upcoming podcast).

We often are more aware of our own needs than we give ourselves credit for. But actually getting them met can be a completely different story. The good news is we are not alone in this.

Your support person might be a romantic partner, but it might be a friend you bring along as a friend-date. Or your favourite cousin you only see at Christmas.

Whoever they are, you can word them up ahead of time so they can make suggestions and run interference on nosy relatives.

Reduce demands

There is so much extra pressure at Christmas: buying the perfect Christmas presents, contributing to food (and making it special!), making Christmas magical for the child/ren in your life; hosting gatherings – with a perfectly clean and tidy home... the list goes on.

Here are some ways you could reduce or eliminate demands:

-       Embracing ‘good enough’.  Francesca Liberatore of Radical Mothering calls this ‘Half-assing the holiday season.’ You can apply this approach to presents, the state of your house, and the magic quotient of the children’s experience of Christmas.

-       Leaning into ‘laziness’, because actually, laziness does not exist. If this time of year is hard for you, it’s okay to ‘contribute less’ than others. That’s not unfair; it’s equitable. I mean, it's probably preferable to communicate your capacity or lack thereof to relevant people rather than just showing up empty-handed with no explanation, but you do you!

-       Leading a revolution to reduce demands for everyone attending the gathering. Can we do a Kris Kringle this year instead of everyone buying for everyone? Do we have to do a full fancy meal or can we do a Christmas brunch and have bacon and egg rolls instead? When we give ourselves grace, we often automatically extend that permission to others.

One year, when a close family member of mine was a financially-struggling uni student, she announced to everyone that she would only be giving presents as part of Kris Kringles and no others. At the time I was offended and put-out. I was also a financially-struggling uni student and I was breaking the bank buying a book for every single person in the family. And not from an evil online bookstore either, I was buying these books full price from independent bookshops!

But guess what? My disappointment didn't affect her in the slightest. In fact, her audacious 'nopeing' out of expanding present-buying demands meant that once I had processed my feelings I realised that literally no-one was making me spend all that money. And I felt I had permission to also 'nope' out of unreasonable Christmas demands

-       Smash the gender binary. Gender plays a big role in demands this time of year. Whatever your own gender identity and that of your partner (if you have one), most of us fall prey to assumptions and unstated expectations. If you have a partner, taking a step towards combating this might be as simple as sitting down with them and brainstorm all the expectations and demands that exist with a view of distributing tasks more equitably (and throwing things off the to-do list wherever possible!).

If you are single, this might be a case of asking yourself which of your demands are feeling very much like you are putting them on yourself (or allowing others to put them on you) because of gendered expectations that you don't even necessarily subscribe to.

Then you get the thrill of doing your bit towards gender equity in the domestic space!

Part two: Tips for while you are at the gathering:

Take breaks when you need them

Organise a sensory room ahead of time. If you are gathering at a house, reach out to your host to ask them where would be the best place for your sensory room. Then word up your support person (as mentioned above, this could be a partner, friend-date or random sympathetic family member) so they can field questions about where you have disappeared to. “They are just having a break. They will be back in a bit.”

It can also be helpful to have a low-key text conversation with someone in your support network – either they are at the gathering and you are writing "Can you believe Uncle Bob said that?" or they are someone else and you can write "You won't believe what Uncle Bob said!". This can be arranged ahead of time: "Are you going to be around for texting at this time/date?"

Bring something to stim with

For me it’s usually crochet. But I have also been getting into doing abstract drawings with oil pastels. If you are worried about appearing weird, it might help to have your support people onside to fend off curious comments. Like, “Hey, they are enjoying themselves, let them be.”

Make a game out of objectionable behaviour

Other people are generally very predictable. You already know that Uncle Bob is going to say something bigoted, Cousin Frida is going to make passive aggressive comments that are just subtle enough to not be call-out-able, and Grandma Jones is going to drink too much and tell everyone her 'secrets' that everyone already knows from the last ten years of festive gatherings. [These are hypothetical examples, everyone's family is different of course].

Sometimes it's like we are waiting for people to do the things that aggravate us, on eggshells until it happens. So instead of dreading these moments, why not make it into a game?

From Captain Awkward:

Consider banding together with non-bigots to make bingo cards or put a dollar in a jar every time the bigots say something terrible and donate the proceeds to a cause that they’d hate. You can do it loudly, as in, “No, keep talking Uncle Paulcifer, every racist or homophobic thing you say is one more dollar for queer sex ed, and I win the Cousins Cup trophy if you get to 100 gross things in a single day!” But you can also do it quietly without ever alerting the target. It’s not about doing it at the bigots or for the bigots or making a big performative statement, it’s about finding humor and solidarity that gets the rest of you through it.

Part three: Plan downtime after the event.

Do you ever have the experience of getting so exhausted from attending intense gatherings that you lose days of your life afterwards? What if you planned for that downtime, so you might even enjoy it?

If you brainstorm fun, nourishing activities now, you have the beginnings of a plan for recovery and something special to look forward to.

You know best what activities are going to bring you joy. (We autistics often have very specific desires).

Here are some ideas to start you off:

-       Watching your favourite TV shows and movies

-       Researching special interests

-       Taking baths (this can help cool you down)

-       Being in nature

-       Listening to comedy podcasts (I love The Guilty Feminist) or familiar favourite music

-       Cold therapy – cold plunges at the beach or river or pool, the aforementioned cool bath, zooper doopers, ice block on the chest etc.

-       Napping

-       Eating samefoods

-       Cuddling the people and/or animals you live with (if your relationship with them involves cuddling and they consent to it).

As much as I hate the extra social demands leading up to and during Christmas Day, I also hate the eerie quiet when everything shuts down between Christmas Day and New Year’s.

Having a list of nourishing activities to engage in helps me resist putting pressure on spending weirdly dead time 'productively', for example by finally finishing unpacking boxes from when we moved house back in the winter.

Please join me in self-compassion in the quietest week of the year and choose TV over housework!

I hope this all helps! Please comment below anything to have to add to these suggestions, or reply directly to this email (if you are reading this article in your inbox).