A quick note before we start: I’m talking about Christmas in this piece because that’s the tradition my family and culture move through – and the one most of the mums I work with are navigating. But everything here applies just as much to any holiday season or big family celebration – from Eid to Diwali, Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, Solstice, New Year or whatever is meaningful in your home. Wherever there are expectations, rituals and “supposed to’s”, there can also be grief, pressure and the chance to make things smaller, softer and still magical in your own way.

If your Christmas looks less like a cosy advert and more like a sensory obstacle course, this one is for you.
Maybe your December includes:
Kids climbing the tree instead of serenely hanging ornaments
A box of delicate, meaningful decorations you *still* can’t use
Beige safe foods on the table instead of a perfect roast
A child who finds the school Christmas concert utterly unbearable
A nervous system that feels like it’s been in a pressure cooker since mid-November
If that’s your reality, you are not doing Christmas “wrong”.
You’re simply living a Christmas the adverts weren’t written for.

This blog is here to be a quiet permission slip. A reminder that your version of Christmas still counts, even if it looks nothing like the one on Instagram.

The Myth of the Perfect Christmas (and the “Good Mum”)

Every December, a tidal wave of expectation rolls in.

It arrives through:

Adverts where every house is spotless and huge
Instagram grids of matching pyjamas and staged “magic”
School newsletters packed with concerts, shows, dress-up days and fairs
Family expectations about big dinners, long visits and “making memories”

Somewhere underneath all of that, many of us absorb a quiet story:
“A good mum makes Christmas magical.
A good mum makes memories.
A good mum pulls it all off with a smile.”
We’ve talked on the podcast before about the *“good mum” myth*… that idea that we must be endlessly patient, organised and self-sacrificing to count as “good enough”.

At Christmas, that myth puts on a sparkly jumper and becomes the perfect Christmas myth:

My kids should be excited and grateful, not overwhelmed and dysregulated.
We should go to the concerts, Santa visits, lights, family gatherings.
We should have special food, special outfits, special traditions.
If I don’t make it all happen, I’ve failed.

The thing is, that fantasy Christmas quietly assumes:

Kids who can tolerate noise, crowds, flashing lights, new foods and routines
Parents who have spare time, money, childcare, health and support
Families who are not already living with chronic stress, sensory overload, appointments, meltdowns or medical needs

So when your real life doesn’t fit that picture, it’s very easy to internalise it as a personal failing:

“Other people manage. Why can’t I?”
“If I were less anxious / more organised / better at regulating my child…”

You are not the problem.
The template is.

You are living a different reality than the one we’re sold. And your reality deserves a Christmas that actually fits it.

The Quiet Grief Underneath the Tinsel

One of the most painful parts of this season, especially for parents of neurodivergent or disabled children, is the quiet grief that sits just under the surface.

We don’t always give ourselves permission to name it. It can feel disloyal… as if saying, “Christmas isn’t what I thought it would be” somehow means, “I wish my child were different.”

But most of the time, the grief is about:

The Christmas we imagined when we first had children
The version of family life we were sold
The traditions we assumed we’d pass down

The ornament box

Maybe, like me, your grief lives in a plastic storage bin.

Inside are:

Delicate glass baubles
Special keepsakes with stories attached
The “nice” ornaments you imagined passing down one day

And for the most part, they stay in that box.

Because your real life right now includes:

A child who climbs and seeks sensory input
Curious hands and impulsive movement
The very real risk that glass + current stage of life = injuries and heartbreak
Also for us… two cats and a dog. Also a recipe for disaster!

So instead, your tree is covered in cheap, unbreakable supermarket ornaments.

They’re plastic. Some are a bit tacky. They’re definitely not “tasteful”.

And yet… in the dark, with the lights glowing and your child beaming with pride because they helped decorate?

It’s still beautiful. It’s still magical.

You might feel two things at once:

Grief for the tree you thought you’d have
Tenderness for this gloriously real, wonky, child-decorated tree

Both are true.
You don’t have to “get over” the grief to love what you have now.

Safe foods at Christmas dinner

The same tension can show up at the table.

Maybe you grew up with:

Turkey, ham, roast potatoes, stuffing, veg, gravy
Everyone sitting down together
Adults insisting you “just try a bit” of everything

Now you are parenting a child who may have:

Sensory sensitivities
ARFID or other patterns around predictability and food
Peg-feeding, tube-feeding or other challenges
A nervous system already overwhelmed by all the other changes

Suddenly the picture-perfect Christmas dinner crashes into reality.
Reality might look like:
Plain crisps and yoghurt
Chips, toast, plain pasta on repeat
A completely separate “kids’ table” of beige safe foods
Cue the guilt spiral:
“Am I ruining their childhood memories?”
“What will people think?”
“Shouldn’t I be encouraging variety?”

If we bring in what we know about nervous systems, though, we can ask a different question:

What do I actually want my child to feel at Christmas dinner?

Shame and pressure?
Or safety, acceptance and relative calm?

A “good enough” Christmas dinner for many of us has very little to do with the menu, and everything to do with the emotional atmosphere.

If that means adults eat roast potatoes while the kids eat chips/fries on mismatched plates?

It still counts.

There might be grief that it doesn’t look like the advert.
And there can be huge magic in your child feeling safe enough to be themselves at the table.

The Christmas concert

And then there’s the school concert.

If you were designing a sensory nightmare, you might come up with:

Bright lights
Amplified music
Itchy costumes
Unpredictable clapping and cheering
Long waits and tight schedules

Culturally, we frame this as a “core childhood memory”.
So when your child can’t cope - melts down in rehearsal, refuses to go on stage, or needs to leave early - it’s very easy to blame yourself.
What if, instead, we let ourselves say:
“I’m sad I don’t get the picture everyone else has.”
“I’m sad my child can’t enjoy this in the way I imagined.”
…*and* we ask:
“Am I willing to put my child through agony for the sake of a photo?”
Choosing your child’s wellbeing over a mythical “core memory” is not failure.
It is love in action.

From Perfect to “Our Kind of Christmas”

If the big cultural template doesn’t work for us, what does?

I like to think in terms of our kind of Christmas.

Not the one-size-fits-all version… but the one that actually fits:

Your child
Your family
Your finances
Your energy
This particular year

I call it a small, soft, still magical Christmas:

Small – scaled to your real capacity
Soft – gentle on nervous systems, including yours
Still magical – containing moments of warmth and connection, even if everything else is scrappy

Here’s how you might begin to shape it.

1. Start with capacity, not ideals

Instead of asking, “What do I want Christmas to look like?” try:

What is my realistic capacity this year: emotionally, physically, financially?
Where is my child’s capacity: sensory-wise, socially, around routine changes?
What support do we actually have (and not have)?

From there, the picture may change:

“We can manage one big outing, not five.”
“We can visit one house, not do a full tour.”
“We need at least one totally quiet day between anything big.”

That’s not pessimism. That’s kindness.

2. Choose your non-negotiables

Once you know your capacity, you can gently sort things into:

Non-negotiables: the 2–3 things that really matter to you this year
Nice-to-haves: lovely if they happen, absolutely okay if they don’t

For example:

Non-negotiables might be:

Putting up the tree together
Watching one specific Christmas film
Visiting grandparents for a short, structured visit
Lighting a candle for someone you’ve lost

Nice-to-haves might be:

The school fair
Elaborate teacher gifts
Matching pyjamas
Extra baking and crafts

Not everything can be in the “non-negotiable” column. If you try to hold everything as essential, your nervous system will tap out long before Christmas Eve.

3. Build in neurodivergent-friendly, disability-inclusive adjustments

A small, soft Christmas often includes very practical tweaks:

Sensory and regulation

Plan for “buffer days” before and after big events
Keep anchors like breakfast, favourite pyjamas and bedtime routines as predictable as possible
Have an exit plan: one adult who can leave early with your child; a quiet room at a relative’s house

Food

Make sure safe foods are non-negotiably available
Ask others not to comment on what your child is/isn’t eating
Feed yourself earlier if you know you’ll be busy co-regulating at the table

Preparation (without turning it into homework)

A very simple visual calendar for the holidays
Brief, honest conversations: “We’ll go to Granny’s for a little while. If it’s too much, we can come home.”

Communication with family

How much you can say depends on your safety, your culture and your relationships. You might be able to be direct:

“We’d love to come, but we’ll need to arrive later/leave early, and [child] will have their tablet and safe foods. If that doesn’t work, we’ll skip this year.”

Or you might need something softer:

“We’ll do our best, but things can change very quickly for us. If we need to leave suddenly or cancel, it’s not personal.”

And if you don’t have that kind of support at all, then your “boundary work” might simply be internal:

We’re not travelling this year.
We’re not doing handmade gifts.
We’re choosing the path of least resistance wherever we can.

That is wisdom, not defeat.

What Will Your Child Actually Remember?

A question that sits heavily on many of us:

“What will my kids remember about their childhood Christmases?”

We worry that if we don’t do enough - enough outings, enough crafts, enough magic - their memories will be lacking.

But when most adults think back, what stands out are often small, sensory and emotional details:

The smell of something in the oven (for me, it’s the smell of my Nana’s stuffing)
The feel of new pyjamas
The sound of a particular song
The mood in the house… warm? tense? chaotic?

For many autistic and disabled adults, memories centre around:

Whether they were accepted or constantly corrected
Whether they were allowed to tap out, or forced to endure
Whether anyone advocated for their needs
Whether Christmas felt safe, or like a yearly test they failed

So when we talk about “our kind of Christmas: small, soft, still magical”, what we’re really asking is:

“What do I want my child to feel in their body when they think of Christmas?”

Not: Did I recreate a magazine spread?
But: Did they feel loved, safe enough, and not constantly in trouble?

Every time you say:

“You can wear your comfy clothes.”
“You can eat your safe food.”
“You don’t have to go on stage.”
“You’re not in trouble for finding this hard.”

…you’re laying down a memory of being cared for.

That is a kind of magic no photograph can fully capture.

Where Do You Fit In This Christmas?

Up to now, we’ve mostly talked about children. But there is another person who matters deeply here: you.

Most mums of neurodivergent or disabled children arrive in December already exhausted. You might have spent the whole term:

Managing school meetings and therapies
Fighting for supports
Juggling work, caring and your own health
Holding everyone else’s emotions about your child

And then December turns up and hands you an extra unpaid job:

“Please project-manage an entire season.
Please make it magical.
Please absorb everyone’s expectations.
And please be festive while you do it.”

No wonder so many of us hit Christmas burned out.

You are allowed to design this season in a way that doesn’t destroy you.
You are not the Christmas department. You are a human being.

Some tiny ways to put yourself back in the picture:
**One thing just for you:** a particular treat, a walk alone on St Stephen’s Day/Boxing Day, a book you genuinely want to read.
**Micro-rests:** three extra minutes in the car before you go into someone’s house; ten minutes lying on the bed while the kids are on screens.
**Letting some balls drop on purpose:** no handmade teacher gifts, gift bags instead of elaborate wrapping, no expectation that the house stay tidy on top of everything else.

You might ask:

“If I could protect one thing for myself this Christmas, what would it be?”

Your sleep?
Your overdraft?
Not crying in the bathroom at someone else’s house?

That thing matters. You matter.

When It’s Still Really Hard

I wish I could say that if you do all of this, your Christmas will be smooth and gentle.

But sometimes there will still be truly hard moments:

A cruel comment from a relative
A meltdown that lasts for hours
A partner who doesn’t understand why you “can’t just relax”
A service or school that has let you down again, right before the holidays

If that happens, you haven’t “failed the brief”.
You didn’t break Christmas. You were never meant to control everything and everyone.

In those moments, the work is not to salvage the day.
It’s to be on your own side as fiercely as you would be on another mum’s.

You might tell yourself:

“Of course this is hard.
Of course I’m upset.
This would be hard for anyone.”

You might imagine the text you wish a friend would send you and mentally send it to yourself.

Sometimes the most magical thing you can do is simply not abandon yourself when things fall apart.

Reflection Prompts: Designing Your Kind of Christmas

If you’d like to take this further, here are some gentle prompts you can sit with:

Name the grief:
“When I think about Christmas this year, I feel sad about…”
Name the guilt:
“When I think about Christmas this year, I feel guilty about…”
Name your capacity:
“Realistically, my energy/emotional capacity is about a ___ out of 10.”
Choose your non-negotiables:
“Given my capacity, the 2–3 things that really matter to me this year are…”
Decide what you’re letting go of:
“This year, I’m giving myself permission to let go of…”
Choose one thing for you:
“One small way I can be on my own side this Christmas is…”

You don’t have to do them all. Even answering one is a start.

Small, Soft, Still Magical – and Enough

Maybe, like me, you have that ornament box in the cupboard… full of beautiful, delicate things that mostly stay packed away.

Christmas can feel a bit like that box: full of inherited expectations, old stories and pictures of how it was “meant” to look.

Some of those things will come out this year. Some won’t. Some might never.

Instead, your real-life Christmas might include:

Plastic baubles from the supermarket
A tree that’s bottom-heavy because that’s where little hands could reach
Stimming, pacing, bouncing, flapping
Beige food on mismatched plates
A child in tracksuit bottoms instead of a “special outfit”
A living room that looks nothing like an advert

And yet… when the lights are low, the tree is glowing, and your child is allowed to be fully themselves in that room?

There is still magic.

Not the kind that comes from performing perfection.
The kind that comes from letting love adapt to reality.

“This is our kind of Christmas.
Small, soft, still magical.
And it’s enough.”

If you catch yourself scrolling other people’s photos and feeling that stab of comparison, you might try this:

Put your phone down.
Look around your actual space – however messy, quiet or chaotic it is.
Find one tiny thing that feels even slightly warm or comforting:
a mug, a blanket, a toy on the floor, fairy lights in the window.
Whisper to yourself:
“Here. This is where our life is happening.
This is where our kind of Christmas is being made.
It doesn’t have to look like theirs to matter.”

Want to go deeper?

You can listen to the full episode – “Our Kind of Christmas: Small, Soft, Still Magical” (Episode 20) – wherever you get your podcasts.

And if you’d like support in figuring out what your kind of Christmas looks like, especially as a mum of a neurodivergent or disabled child, you’re very welcome to explore 1:1 matrescence coaching with me through Fi(ND)ing Motherhood.

However this December unfolds for you, I hope it holds at least a few small, soft moments that are just for you. 💛

Our Kind of Christmas: Small, Soft, Still Magical