The smell of popcorn popping to string on the tree, chestnuts roasting on an open fire (not that we are likely to have a fire in our house, I hope), and the smell of pine all bring back wonderful memories of your childhood Christmas.

Hopefully a time of family and friends and if you were good, lots of presents.

This year was our first real christmas. My ex-husband was incarcerated at the end of summer vacation and I got my divorce papers a week before Christmas, Merry Christmas to me.

He was not a nice man and made our lives a total hell, nuff said. Hopefully he will rot in there for a long time to come.

The community rallied around us, it was totally awesome. They understood that this would be the first "Real" Christmas for my six children and many went out of their way to make it as special as they could.

My children received gifts from the local church that organises a gift tree and also from the domestic violence people who knew how rough a time they had had.

I have six children. Three of my children have moderately severe Autism, and out of those, two don't speak.

I wanted this to be a christmas that they remembered.

And it was!

Katy has moderately severe Autism and does not speak.

She had never seen a Santa Claus and her experiences with male adults have not always been positive so she needed quite a bit of encouragement to sit on Santa's knee.

Of course, there was no way for her to tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas, but, he always seems to know, doesn't he.

One of my friends dropped Santa a line and told him to be sure and visit our house on Christmas Eve, there was a bunch of kids who had been waiting to meet him.

Santa did not disappoint. He was tall, he was jolly and his cheeks were red from being out in the cold.

He was everything that a mum could have hoped for for her six wonderful and extremely excited to see him children.

Well, kind of. My eldest son stopped him at the door and had to be moved to allow Santa in the house and he remained suspect of him for a while.

He finally allowed himself to be won over when Santa showed him a light on his finger that seemed to turn off and on with no switch. He found that more fascinating than his gift.

I think that my eldest daughter summed it up nicely.

Hopefully, it will be the first of many to come.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!