ABCs of Adodption: X is for Xmas

Throw out any concept you have of holidays, kids have their own ideas.    Last year I was looking forward to taking junior to visit Santa, he unfortunately had no interest in going.   I didn't push it, and I wasn't willing to force him to do something that might cause anxiety for him or result in an epic meltdown.   I remembered as a child being so excited to go see and Santa to tell him what I wanted, for junior he just wasn't interested. 

On Christmas morning I expected him to come running into our room at an early hour, excited to rip into his presents.  The reality was Christmas morning was just like every other morning, he woke up at his normal hour, came into our room and cuddled.   We had to ask him if he wanted to go see what Santa brought.   

My only guess is that he had previously been disappointed at Christmas so he wasn't getting his hopes up.   We had learned from his birthday a few months before that the number of presents was much more important than what he received so we made sure he had lots of little presents to open.   He was much more excited on Easter than he was on Christmas.  

This year is a little different.   He has already visited Santa and I got the picture I was hoping for.   His list of what he wants is much longer than last year and more keeps getting added to it every day. Christmas morning will be a little different though since we will be on a cruise.   Last year we started what will hopefully become a tradition of  going on a family vacation.  Last year we left the day after Christmas, this year we will actually be away on Christmas Day.  We are preparing him that Santa can't bring many presents to him on the boat, most of his presents will be at home waiting for him when we return.   We will see how this works out. 

We are trying to also teach him that Christmas is about giving to others.  We donate food and toys to the animal shelter, he loves this as he gets to visit with the cats and dogs there.  We also purge his closet and toys and donate those, in the past we took the items to Goodwill.  This year and going forward we will be bringing items to Treehouse for Kids an organization that helps kids in foster care.   Given that junior spent 3 years in foster care we want to be able to give back to other kids like him.