Autism & the Holidays: A Real-Life Spectrum Recap (B+ Edition)

In this episode, we’re recapping the holidays — autism and all. The holiday season can be especially challenging for individuals on the autism spectrum, with disrupted routines, sensory overload, and nonstop social demands. This year, we’re happy to report that Alec earned a solid B+, and we couldn’t be more thrilled.

We break down what worked well for Alec, the strategies that helped support him, and what we might do differently next time. While this holiday season felt like a win, it hasn’t always been this way — and we share openly about the years when the holidays were anything but successful.

This honest recap is meant to encourage families who are still in the trenches. Progress isn’t about perfection — it’s about learning, adjusting, and celebrating the small wins along the way. If your holidays felt hard, you’re not alone, and there is hope for smoother seasons ahead.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Peace by Piece Autism Podcast with your hosts Angie and Kristen. They've worked 25 years to help Alec get the most out of life. Let them tell you how they're doing it. Hello, welcome back to Peace by Peace Autism Podcast and Happy New Year. We are starting our new season in the year 2026 and can hardly believe we are here. We hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season. And in light of that, we wanted to just do a holiday recap and share with you all of our holiday time spent with Alec and his experience as we recently shared kind of how we break down and support him to get the most out of the season. He spent a good amount of time coming from Utah to Texas with family and then transitioning back from Texas to Utah. And Christy, what would you give him as a letter grade if you had to wrap it up with a grade? What did he earn?

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Well, I would say he got a very solid B plus. Nice. Which, yeah, it's it's something to celebrate. I mean, we've had plenty of holidays where it hasn't come anywhere close to a B plus. So I'm feeling I'm feeling very good about the B plus. Um, the holidays are definitely a work in progress. So, you know, B plus.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yeah, no, I like it. Uh, like I mentioned, we had quite a bit of transition. And obviously, with him flying, staying at different houses, there's always a lot of room for frustration or, you know, low's behaviors, all of that. And we really saw minimal to zero of the behavior issues. He was on edge or amped a little bit, but tell us a little bit more about that.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

All right. I think we do need to mention here, real quick, that Alec is my 28-year-old son, and he has severe nonverbal autism. He lives in a group home setting in Utah. And he his family lives mostly in Texas. So he commutes back to Texas for the holidays sometimes. Sometimes he goes to California with caretakers. And so, anyway, that's a little background on him. A background's important for our new listeners. You know, it's a it's important to know where we are here and who we're talking about. But anyway, he he's a fabulous 28-year-old guy. He's had a whole lifetime full of ABA, OT speech, um, equine therapy, stuff like that. We've we've tried a lot of stuff with him. But anyway, that's where we landed, and he is doing pretty dang well. The travel, the transitions, it was it was all pretty good. It was not an A, but it was good. And I think that one of the things that we did that was great is that we kept the transitions very organized and very just two people. We threw Angie in for a day, but Angie's the type of caretaker that's been around him since he was a baby. So you can throw Angie in basically anytime. He meshes well with her family, and that's never a problem.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah, like we just hung out for a uh not long enough, but a short little day. Yeah, it was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

If if we just sprinkle you in, we can sprinkle you in, and there's no problem with that. Yeah, so yeah, that's fine. So, anyway, so his caretaker used to live with him at his group home in Utah. She typically takes him for the holidays because it's just she and her mother at home, and they were able to have that holiday in Texas, very close to where we lived. So that was great because then he flew home to Texas, he was just in Texas, and then she and I we had to shuffle him back one for like a couple of hours for me to take him to a neurology appointment that he had to do in person. And so we did that, and then he went right back with her, and he was thrilled to see her when we went back because I think he thought, wait a second, Christmas was a day and a half. No, I haven't even got my gifts yet. And um, they gave him the cutest pile of gifts that had wrapping paper with alternating his face and Barney the dinosaur face. It was the cutest ever. Where did they order that? I've got to figure out how does she do that, Angie?

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Well, she sent me a picture of it before. Okay, I knew I knew about the wrapping paper, and I about died when I saw it. But she was walking out of a store, like she had it done at a staples or something. I don't know. But I'm like, I need that, I need that.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

It was a good one. I want that, and it was so cute because she had it was such a photo op, too. She had it in the red and white pajamas, like red pajamas piped in white, and then she had all these wrapped gifts with big old white bows on it. It was so cute, and it was so funny because we have a video of him opening the gifts, and he takes his Mardi Gras beads and he slaps them on every box. And she's she says in the background, he has to clink on every single gift before he opens it.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Yeah, he's going, What is in here? You know, did you not shake it?

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah, he made it really dramatic. But anyway, so that was great. On the way back to Utah, sometimes when we're at the end of something and he knows he's going back to real life, he can be a little bit more amped than usual. And that's what he did. I guess. But we were on the plane. Yeah, you get to the end of the vacation, you're like, heck, no, I'm not ready for this to end. Those Sunday scaries, those those are real. Yeah, that's that's what he had. He's sitting there on the plane with me, going, wait a second. What is going on? I'm going from being doted on for like five days by these people who adore him and just, you know, I adore him too, but my requirements are maybe a tad different after the holidays are over. But so we're on the plane on the way back, and he's just like, will not listen to his iPad, will not listen to my phone, will not listen to anything. He's just like keeps giving me everything that I'm handing him, and I'm just like, oh gosh, don't, you know, don't hit the seat in front of you and don't abruptly stand up or yeah, don't wet your pants or whatever. Yeah. So it was good. We we made it, and he was just kind of just nervous the whole time, which makes me nervous. But anyway, um we got home and it was fine. Yeah. No, it was fine, but it it was just like a little nerve-wracking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

We've got tools in the toolbox to help with some of that with our travel presence activities and some of those things that you can pull out. I just think the airplane and being stuck adds another layer and level of oh my gosh, I we can't get outside and go on a walk, or we can't move our bodies in ways that sometimes Alec really appreciates to get some of the angst out. And so it's it's a bit of a catch-22, but we do try and utilize those tools best we can.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yeah, and I think we've talked about before that he kind of gets plugged into whether I'm nervous or not 100%. And I was, yeah. And as Angie knows, I got a little nervous the day before, or like was it the night before? And I start calling Angie saying, Is there anybody who could fly with me home? So anyway, we found uh we found Angie's niece could go and um we threw her way in the back of the plane by the bathroom. But she didn't mind. She doesn't care. And she went, she came home with me, and it was it was just a relief just to have her there. And then she helped me um get him settled in the day, you know, the day after we came home. And that was really nice that he and I were by ourselves, and so it was it was good to come back. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Well, another thing we've talked about is that part of the stress and the anxiety and the lack of sleep, or all of these things, can be triggers for Alec to have seizures. And I think one thing we did really well this year was allowing him downtime, and we still kind of did our best to keep with our routines, and because of that, he was able to feel calm and a sense of you know peace throughout the several weeks that he was out of his normal routine with his team members.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

So right. We had discussed how his sleep schedule this time was I really let him lead it, which we don't typically do. We keep him on a very regimented sleeping schedule so that his seizures don't act up and we keep it all under control and his behavior is better, you know, just his body functions better whenever his sleep is on a routine. But this time, if he took a shower at 8:30 and he wanted to go right to bed, I honored that and just let him go straight to bed. And I was like, if I if I let him go to bed at 8:30, what what time is he gonna get up? Um, very late. It was like I think he needed, it was kind of like he had a holiday hangover, although he had nothing to drink, I promise, or smoke or anything. Um he was totally just living on his soda water, and he just needed more sleep. Yeah. And I just let him do it. And also, the great thing that happened was he did not wet the bed at all during the holidays. We weren't limiting his liquids, and we were not, I was not enforcing the strict routine bedtime. So, like, I'm not I'm not promoting that as a thing to do, but I thought we really let him listen to his body and determine how much he needed to sleep. And luckily, he's a good sleeper nowadays. Yeah, now was really willing to take that uh sleep that we were offering. But it was good, it was good, it really paid off.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

We also had wonderful weather. I mean, I say wonderful. I was actually a little bit grumpy about it here in Texas because it was way too hot to feel like it was too hot. Yes. But if I wanted it that warm, I would have gone to Hawaii, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

You would it wasn't so frigid that we couldn't enjoy being outside. And right walking has just been a tremendous, tremendous thing for Alec. Getting out and getting his steps in and getting fresh air, I think more than even the steps, maybe. There's something about it that just boosts his mood and changes his day around. And so I know he was able to keep with the walking a ton while he was down here. And his caretaker that um he was staying with here, who roomed with him in Utah, even sent us a message and was like, I can tell this kid has been out walking, like he is at a clip and you know, keeping up and enjoying it. And so that was really cool to have somebody who's not seen the you know week by week progress or know that this is something we've kind of been pushing and working in Utah to say, like, dang, dude, you're killing it out here. So I thought that was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Yeah. And then when it we got back to Utah, it was unseasonably warm here too. Yeah. And we I got him out and was walking with him, and he was just so cute. If he had been just the slightest bit amped inside and we got him out, he took my phone, he listened to it very quietly without a headphone in. So he and I were both hearing the music and just, oh man, he walks so fast. He really does. Yeah, he got me really moving. And it was so I loved it. And then, of course, we use the presence activities that we've talked about in past um episodes. They're always so good just to get in focus. Sometimes we use the gross motor one, and when the weather wouldn't allow, I could just dump out a big container of the the balls like from ball pits. And he would just, yeah, he would just walk around and pick those up. And by the time he had them all picked up, he was he was calm. So that worked really well. And I'm glad that we have that kind of shaped up so that he's using that as a tool.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Yeah, for sure. And anybody can implement those, which is one extra reason why I love them so much, is once once they're established and the routines set, then anybody can can make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

So Yeah. We had a few issues with his behavior. Yeah. And the the few issues, of course, I've already mentioned that he was a little bit amped from time to time, and you had mentioned that too. And then on the plane, he was a little bit amped on the way home, a little bit nervous. But he had we had switched him to eating at home mostly. How long have we implemented that? Would you say it's been three months?

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Oh, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Yeah, that's what I thought. That's what I thought. It was around three months before the holidays hit that he had been eating mostly at home. Right. Even though he loves eating out, we switched it to about two times a week, which has been really good for his waistline and really good for him just feeling good and his body working. Yeah. And so the problem is when we went into the holidays, we all were going out to eat more than eating at home.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

And Heather commented to his caretaker, we were mentioning earlier, that he had an accident in his pants on the way to the super fun thing that she took him to do with his friend. And so that was an issue, but it was only an issue one time. And sometimes we can't control those things because he communicates with a letterboard and didn't have any way to tell her, but that's so hard in the car. So yeah, it's horrible. His skin picking was great until the last few days, and I'm not quite quite sure what the difference was. I I couldn't really put my finger on it why he just woke up one day and he had scratched his hand quite a bit. And then he had a little bit of a flare-up. My daughter came to town to Utah, and she has three children. He seemed to do fine with with the family coming in, and that was good. And we did some good activities every day. The kids spent some time away from him and some time with him. They requested to go to his house to play because he does have the funniest house on the planet.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

And they love all of his fun toys and stuff in his backyard because the weather was warmer. But he was like kind of putting his hand in the driver's face. We were allowing him to sit in the front seat, which we don't always do. And he kept putting his hand in the driver's face or reaching for the steering wheel if I was driving. And what we do when that happens is we put him in the backseat, or we have a third row and we put him all the way to the back. And that's when he really knows, oh boy, I better stop that behavior because that's it, it's just not safe to have him. Yeah. You know, putting his hand. Yeah. Just kind of putting his hand in the driver's face. It's just not that safe. That's not to tolerate. Yeah. So anyway, and we also can't use a child lock in the front seat. So that has been an issue in the past. We gotta watch out for that.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Yeah, typically those aren't day-to-day problems, but when we see them, it's nice to know we've got a backup seat and can really stick it to them that way. But overall, I mean, I agree. A solid B. Like way to go.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

We're happy about that.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yeah, we're happy about that. Did not have any seizures. There were not any big episodes of behavior, you know, large, large fits of any sort. And that is something to celebrate for sure.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah. So what would you say like the top the three things that we did that that really made a difference if you were just looking at the facts? What do you what do you think, Andy? What do we do that was uh different this year?

SPEAKER_01 17:17

I love that he still got to spend time with people who we knew would help him feel comfortable, relaxed, and uh enjoy his holiday. We 100% knew that Heather and her mom would give that to him and that he wanted that for himself as well. And still got to be close to family. I love that I got to see him. Not that that was the highlight of his his break, even though it was my How do you know, and but I I think setting him up for success that way with an environment was of course top-notch. It did include the transition, but most breaks do, and he he tolerates those well. So the surroundings of who he was with, whether, you know, again with Heather or with family or however that went. And then also really allowing him to have some say in his schedule and to get that extra sleep, I do think was a great play on your part to allow him that the needed rest and to let him listen to his body.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

So I think that was But you know, I didn't want to tell you about that. I know, I know, but you can't do it. Angie does not tolerate sleeping in. She's a bit of a drill sergeant when it comes to I am not no offense, no offense, but you like people to get up and get going.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

You gotta not waste your day, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yeah, we didn't want him to waste his day, but my gut was telling me, and I've told y'all before in the podcast, you gotta listen to the gut. And I was afraid of Angie. I was afraid of telling her. And I told her niece, I said, Don't you dare tell Angie what time he slept to today. And then I ended up coming clean because I knew I couldn't, you know, can't hide it. It was too good of a thing. I couldn't hide it from you because the great news was he didn't wet the bed. I know, and we even had what are you gonna say?

SPEAKER_01 19:18

I was gonna say we even had one where he got up from his bed early in the morning, took himself to the bathroom, and put himself back to bed, which is always a reason to celebrate.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

We love he did that multiple times, but this time you're talking about it was at 5 30 in the morning, and he went into the bathroom that's connected to his room, and it was occupied. And so he went all the way down the hall and busted in my room. What's the light on? And I was never so happy to see someone at 5 30 in the morning. Yeah, I was like. Come on in, buddy. Yeah. It was great. It was so great. It was so great.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

We love that. Um, and I don't know that we've really made this clear, but that transition back to Utah was not just jumping back to Utah and jumping back into his day-to-day routine. Christy's home in Utah is not far from where Alex group home setting is. And so you did a really good job, Christy, of just keeping those separate and helping him realize and recognize that this was still break time from the day-to-day demands and expectations that come with his team members coming in and activities and you know, chores and other responsibilities that he is now back to and enjoying and thriving, being back into his routine. But that could have been a little bit tricky or harder for him to handle or be confused about if he were sleeping in his own bed at home, but people weren't coming in and helping him, you know, like those expectations get muddled and we didn't have that type of confusion.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

He can also feel like he's been abandoned, I think, during the holidays by his team. And it didn't give him an opportunity to do that because he he was very clearly at my place. And I'm not as set up for him, but I'm set up for him, and he can sleep here and and be comfortable. And we have a little hot tub here, and he did his requirement to get in the hot tub. And the minute he did his requirement in the bathroom, he would beeline it over to where I keep his swimsuits. And that is, you know, when you see the the wheels turning in his head, it's just so exciting. The where the place I didn't see the turning in his head and where I had to give him a B plus and not an A minus, he didn't communicate as well with me. His spontaneous communication is off the charts right now with his team. Yeah. He's pulling his board and spontaneously initiating with them. With me, he was like, Yeah, mom can read my mind, basically. She knows what I want. Yeah. When he's around me, he just kind of rests on his laurels and he's like, she knows I know how to do this. I'm not, I'm I'm not gonna tell her I want to drink, I'm just gonna go to the fridge and get one, you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

I mean, and you're the mom and you get to do that.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

And it was Christmas vacation. So don't you tell me, Angie? But you know, and I don't have a lock on my pantry like we do back at his house, where he's required to pull his board off the velcro and get access to that. And I'm telling you, if you want to increase communication, that is a thing to do. You have to do that 100%. You have to do that. Yep. And I've I've kind of resisted it in the past, but I do think it works and I love it. But that that was where the B plus came in too, because I really wish he would communicate with me more with the board, with a letterboard, instead of just waiting for me to like take care of him as I did back when he was younger and didn't have his board. Yeah. So yeah. Anyway, well, but all in all, B Plus, I'm happy. I'm pumped.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

I'm thrilled. It was great. It seems like he enjoyed the break. We've all come back ready to, you know, start the start the new year off with some new goals and new exciting things to look forward to. And we will be sharing some of Alec's goals and new year's resolutions with you guys soon, because that's another big part of how we like to start off the new year. And our teams come back re-energized and and rearing to go. So we hope your holidays and time spent with family were lovely. And let's just say if you didn't get a B plus and it was maybe a C or a D, there's always next year. And we got those years. Yeah, it's not always been so great for us. And, you know, there's always room for improvement. So take note, kind of see what things you can change and improve for next year and and try again, because things can get better as we set up systems and routines to support these individuals with autism. So that's a wrap for today's episode of Piece by Piece Autism Podcast. If you're loving the conversations as much as we are, hit the follow button, share the show, and help us spread the word because every piece of the story matters. You can find us on Instagram and Facebook at Piece by Piece Autism Podcast. That's P I E C E Peace by Piece Autism Podcast. Until next time. Bye. Bye.