Elin's Christmas Diary

Christmas Eve and Elin's Daddy just had to get her a decoration for the tree. I think he excelled himself this year! It's funny how even when Chistmas gets a little topsy-turvy some traditions just have to be carried out no matter what. Elin and I also felt strongly that we had to wear brand new Pyjamas on Christmas Eve too and for the second year running they were special Alder Hey charity ones. Last year's stripes made way for this year's spots. If you've not seen the 'Get Spotted For Alder Hey' campaign it's worth looking up and this year that's where our Christmas card money went.  A very worthy cause and a big thank you to Elin's Aunty Karen who works at Alder Hey and buys us our Christmas Eve set each year :-)
Christmas Day was slightly topsy-turvy this year because Elin's Great-Nanny was in hospital so when we would normally all be having lunch, we were visiting her on a ward instead and then having Elin's Great-Grandad over for Turkey sarnies. Elin took it all in her stride and was as good as gold with all the changes to routine .This meant eating Christmas dinner at night which actually turned out to be a nice change. As usual Elin was totally spoiled and actually had even more time than normal to open her presents since we weren't eating at lunch time. She had a 'Big Mack' Communication Aid Switch, Fish Tank, Portable DVD player and some Wireless Headphones for listening to her music with no outside sound from Santa. The rest of her ridiculous hall from our wonderful, overly generous family and friends included Moana goodies, P.J's, a giant Santa balloon, new clothes, C.D's, books, a new rucksack, special lights, a unicorn cape, a foot spa,  and a million other things. She was such a lucky girl. Of course she loved the tearing sound of the wrapping paper best :-)

The build up to Christmas was also a little topsy-turvy this year. If you read the blog regularly you will know that a little classmate of Elin's passed away the week before Christmas. This made for a very strange few days as we contemplated what her family were going through. These things are wrong at any time of year but at Christmas it seemed doubly cruel and incomprehensible. Due to the sad turn of events Elin's traditional school Christingle was unable to go ahead, but we did get to one in our village church on Christmas Eve which we attend each year. Despite not being in any way religious we do try and take Elin to this service, she simply adores the lights and carols, and so we thought of her beautiful little Christmas Angel classmate when the lights went out and of Ellie who we lost in September, and of Tobias who we lost earlier in the year and their families spending their first Christmas without their children. Unthinkable. We held Elin extra tight and felt lucky as we always do that we still have that option.

One positive in that strange, incongruous build up to Christmas was our becoming-traditional visit to the Chester Zoo Lanterns. This is a beautiful display of lights and lanterns in many different forms but mainly animals of course! This year Elin was dystonic so sitting in her chair was not as enjoyable for her but she still really enjoyed it and so did we. I would say that it wasn't quite as good as last year, there was a different company in charge and there weren't as many interactive displays or puppets/moving animatronics (which were both mine and Elin's favourite parts last year!) but still for the money it remained a lovely Christmas treat.

So after the excitement of Christmas day was over we went to London to visit the Drake family for Drake-mass mark two!! Unfortunately Elin remains dystonic and although she was incredibly happy and calm whilst we were down there the journey to and from London was not an easy one at all and one which Christmas traffic definitely didn't help. It has really started to become apparent to me that being anywhere but our own home for any length of time with Elin has started to become a real big deal. In travelling terms because of the dystonia even just getting her in and out of the car at the service station was hard going . Then, not having hoists and level changing platforms or step-free access/wet room etc is much harder than it used to be. I ambitiously had her on the floor a few times and getting up from that position with her has definitely taken it's toll even after a couple of days. Since our family is so huge this makes me worry about what this means for future get-togethers as she gets longer and heavier at a rate of knots, or so it seems lately. I don't like change at all but I think 2018 might signal a pretty seismic shift in our world. Elin will be turning 10 and I don't think we can tote her around as though she is still a toddler anymore :-( Sadly, I didn't get many photo's from our trip- a sure sign that I was mostly pinned underneath Elin for the duration but suffice to say she had a lovely time. She was spoiled rotten AGAIN and as usual absolutely revelled in being around the children. She only has to hear their voices and she's laughing, it's the cutest thing. 

Well. we're home again now and that brings us up to date with Elin's Christmas adventures so far. I'm not sure what else we have planned but as she doesn't return to school until the 9th of January this year I'm sure there will be plenty of holiday fun yet to come- I'll be sure to keep you informed. 

Thanks for reading about our girl, hope you all had a wonderful, happy and healthy holiday

Ruth xx