Holiday Gift Guide for Autism

{ Editor’s note: I wrote this post after many conversations with my son Jack about receiving presents. }

My favorite present I ever got was a frying pan. 

It was non-stick with a blue handle. 

I love the holidays. I love taking out all the decorations and putting them in the same spots from last year. 

I love to bake cookies. 

I like to buy presents for people.

I watch quietly and I notice the things they like and then I ask my mother if I can go on Amazon so I can make orders.

Sometimes she says no because she is remembering when I went on her Amazon and ordered eighty-three DVD’s and they all came in the mail. So now I tell her if it is a present.

Last year I ordered my father a meatball maker. He is Italian. He likes to make spaghetti and meatballs with red tomato sauce. They are delicious.

I ordered my mother a bottle of Kaboom Foamtastic, because I saw on TV that it is designed to safely tackle all of your bathroom’s toughest stains so you don’t need a cabinet full of cleaners. I thought this would make her happy because she is always complaining about how our cabinets are full of junk.

I like very much to give presents, but sometimes getting presents is hard for me.

When someone gives me a present, they get very, very excited and they clap their hands and say fast-like open it open it now Jack hurry see what’s inside. The words are like bees buzzing around my head. They sting my ears.

I don’t like to hurry. I like to take my time and turn it over in my hands and feel how the paper is smooth and shiny.

I know I am supposed to say thank you. I am supposed to tell you I love it. 

But I don’t know if I love it yet. I can’t know what to do with the present until I take it home and see how it fits with me. I have to put it all around my house in different spots. I have to understand it.

In order for me to understand a word, I have to connect it to something I have felt or touched or smelled or heard or tasted. Like when someone says the word campfire, right away I feel how hot the flames are on my face and I taste marshmallows in my mouth. I hear the flicker of the fire in my ears.

With my words and my anxiety and my autism, I feel like I am standing on the edge of a big high mountain and I am alone. You are on another mountain and I can see you, but in between us is only a tightrope that is stretched very thin and long.

If you are very nice and you give me a present, here are some ideas that might make it easier for the both of us. 

Don’t be mad or sad if I don’t seem very excited when I open it. On the inside I am jumping up and down and my heart is skipping like it has a jump rope. It is hard for me to get my outsides to match my insides.

My joy is different from yours. Still, it is joy.

Try not to get annoyed if I don’t thank you right away. I am not being rude. I am processing the box and the paper and the present and you. I am trying to make it all fit inside my world.

I know it is hard to shop for someone like me. I have no hobbies. I don’t play sports. I do not like toys.

What I really want is not in a mall or on Amazon. 

I want to know you. 

I want to connect with you through a memory, like the time you built your first campfire and made s’mores on a hot summer night.

Instead of a new train or a DVD, I would love an old family recipe for your favorite cookies.

Or a decoration you think is special, like an ornament.

Later on, after all the wrapping paper is crinkled up and thrown in the trash, I might come and sit by you quiet-like. If you are very still for me, maybe I will touch your sleeve.

I am trying to tell you one thing when I do this.

I am glad you crossed the tightrope to my side of the mountain.

Thank you.

In case I forget to say it.

Thank you.

I made cheeseburgers with my new frying pan. For my family to taste.