Christmas in September-a perspective in Down syndrome.

Go ahead – ask me why we put a Christmas tree up on September 27th.

Well, we have a “Clark”, the youngest of our 4 awesome children, who just happens to have Down’s syndrome. He adores Christmas. Currently, he does not understand the order of days or holidays or the concept of time or, or, or…...

He doesn’t know that just because you WANT to repeat Sunday, sleep- in jammie day when it is Monday morning, you can’t. He doesn’t know that Halloween comes before Christmas and Valentine’s day follows in the spring, and that other children don’t wear their Spiderman costumes to school as regular attire.

He doesn’t care about the order of the abstract – he cares about the order in which he colors or how his army men line up, or the order in which HE wants his day to unfold – but not about the societal order of things in life.

If he wants a Christmas “ree” up in September…who cares? I didn’t…but.. I did, however, draw the line with bringing up the gazillions of ornaments and potential barf of glitter that would ensue from one end of the house to the other – so he got creative: a stapler, a few diapers, stickers, a marble run, a night-light, a margarine lid, hairspray, a pot holder, a gluestick, my computer mouse, a wii remote and many other items and a few I am not even sure what or who they belong to?

Clark has the uncanny ability to discern who people really are in their hearts, unveiled, their completely raw selves…based on what we call his "Clark-o-meter" …he will invite you into his circle or he won’t…he does not do this through judgement but he senses it… and he responds to these feelings accordingly…

So ….I have no idea why he wants Christmas in September...maybe he was hoping for presents to open, perhaps he wanted to hear Christmas music, or maybe he felt the need for that warm cozy feeling that accompanies the Christmas season.

Perhaps he senses such unbalance in the world with all the shootings and the world in crisis that a Christmas tree in September would send a calm of love into the world…

…What I do know is that Clark can see, sense, and know things that we can’t or things which we are blind to in our day- to- day busy-ness…so in our house we may have things happening out of the ordinary…because of our “Clark”.

He has come to teach us that there is so much more to every person than meets our naked eye..he can perceive truths, feelings, and realities ever more clearly than us.

So, there must be a reason he felt the need for the “ree” to be up…in September...

…and so it is...