Sensitive Santa

  Last Tuesday in my local paper, there was an article on Sensitive Santa. This man professionally goes around to groups of autistic children and lets these kids tell him their wishes for Christmas. However, instead of being loud and surrounded by mobs of people and millions of brightly colored lights, this Santa has no line and is quiet so these autistic children will feel safe and not do a "freak out". This is an amazing idea that is enormously generous.
  A lot of my readers will understand the terror of going to see Santa, especially at a young age. There are a huge number of lights, and even worse, everyone and their mother show up and are talking and yelling and some are even screaming. It's a sensory overload that even the best Aspie sometimes cannot handle.
   I can relate. Without fail, every year, my mother troops my brothers and I down in our itchy Christmas sweaters to see Santa. I absolutely would dread it every single year.Without fail, there would be a ton of people there, and occasionally bad things happen like the year my youngest brother randomly got a horribly bad nosebleed and my mom left me in charge of my other brother while she changed the youngster's shirt. Naturally, I panicked because I had no clue what to do. There were so many people there and they were all talking and, well, let's say it did not end well.
     Here are some tips I have picked up in my seventeen trips to see Santa.

• Come with a group. Let other people wait in line while you go sit somewhere quieter, then they can come get you when it's your turn.
• Hum a tune to yourself, or talk to your friends so you are distracted from the lights.
• Come with people you really like, and they can coach you through it.

These tips are really great if you must see Santa or do something else that's equally difficult. I wish you the best of luck.

Please pray for the children in Connecticut.