Before Autism, I was highly organized and often had most - if not all - of my Christmas shopping done by this time of the year. In past years, I would even deliver all of my family’s Christmas gifts during our Thanksgiving trip, if I knew we wouldn’t see them for Christmas.

Now I’m just doing well to make it through Thanksgiving and manage to keep going. I’m not complaining - I love preparing a GFCF meal that I know my son will be able to enjoy, but I’m a little burned out; just a little.

Again, I love that at my house on Thanksgiving, my guy isn’t told “no” about anything on the table…it is just a little exhausting to have to prepare the majority of it. Can’t just run out to Kroger, or even Whole Foods for that matter, and buy GFCF rolls/dressing/pie that “feel” like the Thanksgiving foods I grew up with. That’s why my mom and I have worked to adapt our recipes to make them all homemade. And to be honest – they rock! I love to bake and cook – especially for the holidays, but I don’t love to clean it all up! Wow – what a mess! It is so much easier to celebrate with my mom because we both cook and we both clean so it seems to take half the time. Boy did I miss her this year! I’m still cleaning up from hosting 10 here at our house.

I guess that’s why I didn’t have it in me to decorate the whole stinkin’ house this weekend for Christmas or push myself to join the masses of crowds in the stores to buy gifts for our friends and loved ones. Nope, instead of unloading all of our Christmas decorations from the storage building, garage and attic, I took it easy this weekend because there was no homework to worry over and there was far less therapy to attend to this past week. We watched movies, played our new Wii (see my post here about the Wii), and ate a lot of left-overs after the big T day. In fact, I haven’t cooked a full-fledged meal since Thursday…I’m all cooked (and cleaned) out, I guess!

So, while in my yesteryear, I might have gotten down on myself for not being “prepared” for Christmas by this time of year, now that I am older and wiser, I actually allowed myself to enjoy doing a little “nothing” last week. The Christmas shopping will get done one way or another. And, I think it helps to know that at Christmas, I’ll be cooking and cleaning with great company…so I won’t be quite so overwhelmed when it is all said and done.

Still, I’m glad there are almost 4 weeks left until the big day…I have a lot left to do to get ready.

Are YOU ready for Christmas?

Leigh Attaway Wilcox is a writer and editor for the projectLD family of companies. Leigh is Assistant Editor of the internationally acclaimed AutismSpot.com and her work can be found on many of the pLDNetworks sites. Leigh is a guest blogger for the Dallas Morning News on the Dallas Moms Blog and is the author of ALL BETTER: A Touch-and-Heal Book published by Piggy Toes Press in 2007. Leigh lives in North Texas with her husband and young son who loves reading, LEGOs, Mario Bros. and also happens to live with Asperger's Syndrome, an Autism Spectrum Disorder.