Merry Christmas from Steph and our two girls!

Living with PDA over the festive season....

Dec 25, 2023

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Cheers and Merry Christmas to all!

A Christmas Day email might surprise a few of you, and I’m sure there will be some who are far too busy to even think about opening an email on a day like this. But some of us are having quieter days, and that’s no bad thing, I reckon.

To all those whose Christmas Day hasn’t gone how they hoped it would, I’ve been there and felt those feelings. Can I just say that tomorrow is another day? Once you’ve picked yourself up and dusted yourself down, give yourself some time to take it easy and things might seem a bit less ‘on edge’ in the morning. I know it’s not as simple as that for many families of course; I remember being in that ‘walking on eggshells’ state a lot of the time when our PDAer was younger.

As the years have gone by, we have learnt to do less at this crazy time of year. Last year there were only three of us in the house for Christmas and our PDAer chose to open her Christmas presents alone. She had finally been able to explain to me how difficult she found the attention and the perceived expectation of showing a happy reaction to gifts. We weren’t putting any pressure on her that we were aware of, but somehow she felt bad for not being able to show joy over gifts she really had no interest in.

This year, she spent over an hour in the room opening presents with us and her sister. So that was my Christmas joy right there! A few weeks ago I posted on my Stephs Two Girls Facebook page about how difficult it was to buy any presents for our PDAer as she’s not a fan of typical teenage ‘easy’ presents like food or make-up or event tickets etc, but one idea that went down well last Christmas was these McDonalds gift vouchers, enabling her to request an extra fries delivery any day she likes, so I knew a restocking of those would be welcomed.

I somehow managed a couple of flashes of inspiration for other gifts - a Kirby neon sign and a pink gaming chair (non-leather, sensory reasons!). I gambled on a couple of Switch games but should have known better (she has very specific game interests and is rarely tempted by anything new), so they’ve already been given to me to send back, ha!

The picture above links to a blog post of mine where I wrote about extreme anxiety and how that can affect our lives… it’s still there, we live with that every day. But it helps to keep everything as calm as we can.

Highly recommended

Today I wanted to share this illustration from Twisted Doodles on Instagram:

Christmas dinner for our PDAer was the same meal she eats every other day of the year, nothing Christmassy about it. And she ate it on the sofa, alone, exactly where she prefers to be to eat. Our eldest daughter ate Christmas dinner at the table with us…. I always feel a need to mention that kind of difference because it might just help some people understand that how we do things in our house is not because we are lazy and didn’t encourage our youngest to eat at a table.

But it’s difficult to explain how and why we do so many things differently in our house (and it would end up a very long email if I tried!), so that’s one reason why I’m glad our book is coming out next year.

Book Reviews

I’ve now got a large pile of books sitting next to me that I’m hoping to read over the next few days. Reviews will be coming soon on the blog that I’ve had to sadly neglect over the past few weeks.

On my social media channels this week I shared two posts that received more attention than any happy festive ramblings I’ve written recently - one was about the state of EHCPs and how I was having to work through a draft with a million frustrating mistakes in it, and the other was a blog post

from my Not Fine in School series that highlighted the words “I wish I hadn’t put all my trust in the professionals. I wish I hadn’t listened to that school. I wish I had validated and listened to my son sooner.” If this is how you are feeling, you are not alone. Read more posts about struggles with education here: Not Fine in School (all posts).

Blogiversary fast approaching

In January it will be 14 years since I wrote the first post on my blog - what a lot has happened since then!

To everyone reading this newsletter, thank you so much for your support of my blog and social media pages over the years. I’m going to need to ask for your help just a few more times over the next month to ensure that as many people as possible hear about our book. It’s amazing to think we might make a positive difference to the lives of some families, and you’ve all enabled that to happen, so thank you.

Here’s more info on our PDA in the Family book in case you’ve missed it before - please share with as many people as you can; wider family members and friends (especially those who might not have understood how you’ve needed to do Christmas differently), other families, educators, health care professionals etc!

In the next couple of weeks I’m hoping to send out details of a book launch event that I hope many of you will be able to join - watch this space (or make a note to definitely open the next email)…..

Question Time

This week’s quick question had to be another festive one - the mince pies won the last poll about best Christmas food! What’s your favourite film to watch at Christmas (and if it’s not one of these, hit reply and let me know which one you’d recommend I watch over the next couple of days)?

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, please get in touch via stephstwogirls@gmail.com or reply to this email.