I’d bet Christmas starts much earlier in our home than in yours. Why? Well, we have a “Clark”, the youngest of our four awesome children, who just happens to have Down’s syndrome. He adores Christmas. He does not understand the order of days, or holidays, or the concept of time.
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 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 also wants Christmas in September.
Clark doesn’t care about the order of the abstract – he cares about the order in which he colours, 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 did, however, draw the line with adding the gazillions of ornaments and potential barf of glitter to the tree that would spread from one end of the house to the other.
So, Clark got creative: he added a stapler, a few diapers, stickers, a marble run, a night-light, a margarine lid, hairspray, a pot holder, a glue stick, my computer mouse, a Wii remote, and many other items and a few I’m 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’ll invite you into his circle or he won’t…he doesn’t do this through judgement, but he senses it…and he responds to these feelings accordingly.
I have no idea why he wants Christmas in September…maybe he was hopes for presents to open, perhaps he wants to hear Christmas music, or maybe he feels the need for the warm cozy feeling that accompanies the Christmas season.
Perhaps he senses such unbalance in the world that he knows a Christmas tree in September can instead send a sign of peace on earth to everyone. Clark really is Charles Dickens’ Tiny Tim.
What I do know, is that Clark sees, senses, and knows things that we can’t. He’s tuned into things which we’re blind to in our day-to-day busy-ness. So, in our house, we have things happen that are out of the ordinary, because of our
“Clark”.
He’s come to teach us that there’s so much more to every person than meets our naked eye. He can perceive truths, feelings, and realities more clearly than us.
All I know is that nothing brings me greater joy than seeing a Christmas tree covered with staplers, diapers, and glue guns in September.
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