In the lead up to Christmas this year, there were a lot of blog posts about coping with Christmas and helping your children cope with Christmas. It was interesting to see how those blog posts covered all manner of topics dealing with; Crowds and over-stimulation Relatives who couldn't (or didn't want to) understand your child's issues "Surprise" Management Junk food issues Travel difficulties Gift-Reaction Management General change management (because Christmas throws every routine out) There were all kinds of discussions about preparing your child and family for Christmas. Some of them, if read by the wrong people would have made the children seem like "spoiled brats" and some were against the very nature of Christmas (in my opinion only). An Example from our household I'm quite big on "surprises", so I don't generally like surprise management tactics where you let your child know what to expect as a gift. This year, our kids got a n