Since encountering a few festive mishaps and learning Paudie is autistic, Victoria knows the key to ensuring All is Calm at Christmas is to let go of the picture-perfect idea of what Christmas should be. Instead, she’s been finding the Christmas that works for her, Paudie, and the rest of her family.

Paudie loves Christmas Day. We live quite rurally in Ireland, and we all get together with the family, which he loves because he's so close to his cousins. He loves seeing everyone. He enjoys that part of it. It’s the lead-up to it that he finds hard.

One night, when Paudie was five, we put the kids to bed and put up the Christmas tree. He walked into the kitchen the next day and lost the plot. He was trying to rip it down.

I thought, ‘Why is he doing this? What is wrong with it?’ And he was like, ‘This can't be here. This doesn't belong here.’

I was baffled. I didn't understand what was going through his head. We didn’t know he was autistic then. Now, I realise the change was difficult for him. He must have thought, ‘Where has the change come from? Where is my usual kitchen?'

Now, we very slowly integrate Christmas into the house, so he gets time to get used to it. He gets more involved in decorating now, too. If he wants to put something somewhere, we just say, ‘OK, fine. It can go there.’ We're not precious about where the decorations go.

Last year, we realised visiting Santa wasn’t the best idea. When we got there, he walked in, and he said, ‘This is so fake! Santa's fake! These Elves are fake!’ And he started to pull at everything. I quickly realised we should leave. We walked him out while trying to stop him from telling all the other kids that it’s all fake.

This year, my husband is taking Paudie to a sensory Santa. At Sensory Santa, there are no queues, which Paudie can’t cope with. And there's no big, flashing lights. You can have a bit of extra time with Santa. If a child has a meltdown, it's expected. If the same thing happens as last year, it won’t matter as much.

The wider family are learning that Paudie thinks a little bit differently, and we just have to go with it sometimes. It's not going to ruin Christmas if he doesn't eat the Christmas dinner, and he wants chicken nuggets instead.

My tip for other families is to be patient. If your day doesn't look like someone else's day does on social media, with all the trips to the Christmas market or going out to dinner, that’s fine.

Paudie likes getting chocolate selection boxes and separating each brand of chocolate into piles. He does it every year. If he wants to sit there for an hour and separate the chocolates, that is fine. If he doesn't want to have kisses with all his aunties and uncles, that's OK. If he wants to go to his room for an hour on the iPad, that is fine too.

Thank you, Victoria, for sharing Paudie’s Christmas story, and a huge thank you for taking on the 2026 London Marathon for us too! #TeamAutistica

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