When you have a neurodiverse child it is difficult to know how they will react when you go out for the day. On Saturday we went to our local Christmas Tree Festival and saw the church filled with more than 90 Christmas trees decorated by Brownies, Guides, local businesses and the local schoolchildren.

I help out with my local Brownie pack and I enjoyed producing decorated wooden teapots and teacups for our tree with them.

The church really does look pretty and I long for us to have a visit when Oscar is not talking about the tombola 1 million times. We had given ourselves over an hour to visit before my daughter had to get ready to sing with her school choir on the High Street in the Christmas Light Switch on. 20 minutes in, we had glanced at all the trees (10 minutes of which Oscar was going on about the tombola and insisting on which way we should go.) I’m not sure that ear defenders would have made a difference but I wish I’d taken them as he was a bit overwrought. As a parent you can’t not take them out to places though and I don’t want to be unfair to my daughter so we battled on. We finally made it to the tombola and luckily Oscar won some sweets.

After we had finished with the tombola, Oscar insisted on seeing the ‘boat tree’ again, a creation by a local company, Whitewater Ways. This is where it all unravelled…

The church has a one way system to view the trees but obviously that doesn’t work for Oscar. Near the boat tree was the entrance to the festival and the exit was the other side of the church. Naturally, Oscar had to leave by the entrance. We tried to get him out the proper way but he was starting to create so we had to squeeze by a very long line of people and eventually made it out to the fresh air. Then he decided he wanted to go back in so I tried to get him in by the exit as we had left his sister inside doing a quiz with her friend. But no he wanted to go in by the entrance again. I went to fetch my daughter, leaving him kicking and screaming and by the time I returned, Oscar had decided he now wanted to do the Christmas Market. Other families with neurotypical children can’t always see how hard it can be and my stress levels are through the roof. You have to try and be patient but it is very difficult.

Despite the challenges on Saturday, we will still do it next year and maybe take steps to help for example ear defenders. It is still a nice outing. I love Christmas and I am in the Christmas spirit from the beginning of November. Also, normally Oscar insists on winning whatever he wants at the adult tombola even if he doesn’t get the right number. But on Saturday he was quite happy to do the children’s one. I loved seeing my daughter sing this year and my in-laws got to get into the Christmas spirit.

By the time we saw my daughter sing, he had calmed down and he loved seeing the lights being switched on. We walked home and took him up to bed nice and early and watched Strictly. Might have had some Baileys too!