Holidays

Last night I dreamed that I was teaching a small class of middle schoolers or high schoolers some sort of elective. I hadn’t really prepared a curriculum and was sort of BS-ing my way through the lesson, which consisted of walking around our neighborhood park and pointing out various conifers and their rate of growth. Some pine trees are enormously tall, and some are just the size of Christmas Trees, I wisely pointed out while they took notes. One kid raised his hand and asked a “Will this be on the test?” kind of question. He wanted to know if the kids would need to decorate Christmas Trees as a requirement of the class. No, no, I assured him, I’m Jewish and don’t do that sort of thing.

Sarah definitely knew she was Jewish. But when you have a child with special needs who doesn’t necessarily understand religion or the nature of religious holidays, and most of all, why other children are getting presents and you’re not, you approach religious holidays as festivals rather than religious orthodoxy. I remember when Sarah was about two years old she spotted Santa at a kids’ party and squealed with delight. We had no idea how she was acquainted with Santa. Probably television or just the cultural zeitgeist.

We certainly didn’t want Sarah feeling like she was left off the list of good kids for whom Santa brings presents, so we provided both Christmas and Hanukkah presents. She believed in Santa all her life, and she really cleaned up present-wise. It was hard sometimes to find a range of good toys that suited her and that she could have fun with and manipulate physically. I followed a page on Facebook called “A Very Special Needs Christmas” that had a lot of good ideas for adapted toys and sometimes we just got lucky. As she got older, she just wanted Minecraft and Minions and Stampy stuff primarily, and a few books and clothes.

Holidays are just so empty and hard without her. I don’t think that’s going to change. I cooked chili and banana bread this weekend and did my best to keep my mood up but it’s just so difficult. Sarah loved balloons and we bought her a balloon for every holiday. I can’t go to Safeway or Giant without wanting to buy one and bring it home for her.