It’s Christmas. It might only be the first week of December, but it’s still Christmas: mince pies have been in stories for about three months now, and that's the metric we're using.
It’s supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year for those of us who celebrate it, but when you’ve got dyslexia, sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming. There's a lot of reading and writing to do, and most people don't realise how taxing the season can feel— the things that a lot of people take for granted can actually pose some difficulties when you've got literacy differences, and it can make the whole Christmas season feel a little bit dull and tiring. That being said, there are a number of things you can do to put your mental health first and help the holidays be a little more relaxing - so we've jotted those down, too.
5 Things We Don't Love About Having Dyslexia at Christmas
(and how to take care of yourself, too)
The sheer amount of writing we seem to have to put ourselves through. From Christmas cards and present tags to WhatsApp conversations about where we’re meeting, who’s bringing what and who invited who, it’s exhausting, especially if you’re somebody with dyslexia who really struggles with the writing part. Can we not just send a group text of Christmas greetings to everybody in our contacts list and be done with it, instead of writing and addressing a stack of cards and parcels every year?
Handy Hint: yes, you can! Preserve your mental bandwidth when it comes to Christmas greetings and do them in the way that works for you. There are websites that can send your cards for you and all you have to do is input addresses, or you can just opt to call or message instead. Don’t feel pressured to send out a stack of cards if it’s a pain for you— in going paperless, you'll be helping take a little more care of the planet too.
We focus on cooking and hosting a lot at this time of year, and for some people with dyslexia, cooking things- especially the types of things that are complicated and we don’t usually cook- can be a bit of a nightmare. It may mean keeping track of multiple timers at once, reading lots of tightly-packed cooking instructions, or having to read through somebody’s life story online to get to their gravy recipe. Some people with dyslexia love to cook and get creative with it, but some really don’t enjoy it either: lots of reading and high-stakes time management means a lot of stress. We don’t want to be a Scrooge, but it’d be easier if we lowered the expectations— how does a festive cheeseboard sound?
Handy Hint: if somebody’s coming to your house over the festive period, they’re not actually coming to see your food. They’re coming to see you. If cooking is stressful and all the reading, the timing and the anxiety is too much, then you get out that cheeseboard— nobody who’s worth bothering with is going to care. You could also make plans to cook together and let them handle some of the reading tasks, if you’re really committed to a four-course festive feast.
Burnout. It’s not exactly the most festive concept, but it’s a real one. Many of us with dyslexia spend the year working – and that means masking for many of us, too. The celebration time we habitually take off over Christmas doubles as decompressing and unmasking time for so many people with dyslexia, and provides a rest period where we can relax and feel like we don’t have to hide… so it’s a shame that it’s usually the busiest time of the year for socialising, hosting and driving up and down the country too.
Handy Hint: give yourself the luxury of saying no. If you’re exhausted, if you’re overstimulated, if you simply can’t face the stress of driving for a couple of hours, tell folks you can’t make it. Dyslexia can be tiring and most people aren’t aware of the huge levels of effort you might have to put in on a daily basis, especially if you’re working. Use your vacation as vacation, not an opportunity just do another kind of work.
Sometimes we get gifts that make absolutely no sense. A copy of the latest bestseller might be a fab gift for many of your friends, but for us, enjoying it depends on a lot of factors – how dyslexia-friendly the font text is, whether it’s written in an accessible way, whether we’re equipped with the right text-to-speech reading support, or if we prefer to take in our books as High/Low books or even audiobooks. Just ask us, please— it’s nice to know that you thought of us, but it’d be even nicer if you could get us literature in the form we find best.
Handy Hint: Tools that unlock the world of reading are an important part of the conversation too! Text-to-Speech reading aids can be a wonderful gift that has the power to unlock a whole other range of reading materials and make reading things like that number-one bestseller a little easier on the soul.
Christmas shopping. If we do it online, that means a lot of reading. If we do it in-person, it also means a fair bit of reading- and often in very crowded spaces where a lot of people are vying for the same bit of space in front of a shelf. It can feel a little humiliating, having to spend extra time looking at things like price tags or the back of toys and games to work out if they’re right for who you’re buying for— even worse if there’s somebody there rolling their eyes at you, or huffing because you’re not making a decision fast enough. And eurgh, that’s before the loud music, constant distractions and twinkling lights come into play too.
Handy Hint: nobody dislikes vouchers— they’re usually fairly easy to buy at checkouts and online, and they allow people to go out and get the things they want without it putting extra strain on you. Cash is the same: maybe fifty years ago people might have frowned a little when they opened a card with a crisp bill inside it, but it’s very acceptable today… and this whole cost-of-living thing is getting a little out of hand anyway, so nobody’s going to complain about having a little extra in their pocket for a festive treat of their choosing.