“That will be five dollars to get into the game.” Weird how those ten words can make me think.

Okay, perhaps you might need a bit of background information here. I heard those words as I entered my ten-year-old son’s basketball game this past Saturday. I had not heard those words since last year’s basketball season. A full year ago. 365 days ago. But it felt like yesterday.

And this got me thinking about time. Or rather the quickly passing thing called TIME.

When you look at your child’s pictures from years ago…what do you say? For us it is: “Wow, time passes so quickly” or “Where did the time go?”

It is a funny, crazy thing in life, this thing called time. Because it passes so quickly on one hand, but try to fill 15 minutes with a younger sibling while waiting for your other child in therapy and it passes more S-L-O-W-L-Y than you can imagine.

Holidays mark the passing of time better than anything I can think of. We can remember last year’s holidays and hardly believe we are here again. And we can get so into the things we have to do, the places we have to be, and the gifts we have to buy, that we can forget to take it all in and remember. And make those memories!!

I know that when Elizabeth was little, like one or two years old, and deep in the throws of her sensory needs, I spent so much time working hard to keep her “good” that the holidays were in my rear view before I had a chance to enjoy them.

I learned so much about life with a special needs child throughout all these years. Not only about Elizabeth and her special needs, but about how to manage them, encourage her, and help her. And be peaceful myself.

I learned that:

• We can skip an event because of Elizabeth and that is okay.
• We can plan something and change our mind if we need to for Elizabeth and that’s okay.
• We can be proud of the work we have done for her in this year’s time and that’s okay.
• We can make memories our own way and that’s okay.
• There is no one way to make Christmas special and that my friends is FREEING.

If you allow yourself to do the above, in my opinion, you can free yourself to make memories and enjoy the holidays to the best of your ability.

Something else to think about:

When you look back on the holiday from last year to this year, you can see the changes your child has made. Gains in words said, clarity of words, new skills mastered or even some good eye contact maintained. Whatever it is, you can see the growth as measured by the time frame of a year. So allow these positives to be a type of Christmas present to you and your family. Some of the best presents cannot be put in a box!

I wish you blessed holidays and more memories than you can count.

Michele Gianetti writes for TalkTools Blog every month about her experience caring for Elizabeth, her daughter with Sensory Processing Disorder. Follow her story since the beginning here.