A Visit with Santa Minus Fanfare

There was little fanfare at this meeting with Santa Claus.

There was no music playing, no lights twinkling and, perhaps most importantly, no crowds gathering. But the sober staging belied the excitement felt by the parents who brought their children, hoping this visit with St. Nick would be a successful one.

It Takes a Village to Raise Child with Autism

From Michele Somerville on Huffington Post.

We're three years apart, my brother and me. I'm a city mouse. He's a suburb mouse. He drives a big suburban truck. I ride the subway. He works in finance and subsists on Diet Pepsi and cheeseburgers. I'm a latte-sipping, teacher and poet. There's a major cultural divide. On Sundays, his kids go to mass and play soccer. On Sundays my kids set up for the Hope Dinner at my church and study art at the museum. But one thing he and I have always had in common is robust imagination. People with imagination tend to have an easier time valuing and enjoying diversity. I have come to recognize that it is his imaginative powers, as much as his love for a sister, that have moved my brother to "throw down" with truly knowing and loving his nephew (my son) who has Aspergers (a disorder on the Autism Spectrum)