The quiet season: reclaiming rest from performative festivity
Winter is supposed to be a season of rest. The natural world slows down, the light fades and everything in our biology leans toward quiet. Yet December demands the opposite: noise, speed, performance, compulsory joy.
For many Neurodivergent people, this isn’t festive,it’s exhausting. This year, perhaps more than any other, Neurodiverse Connection’s Communications and Project Assistant, Victoria Denham has found herself questioning whether she wants to keep pretending that this version of celebration works for her.
For many Neurodivergent people, this seasonal pressure collides with the realities of sensory needs, emotional regulation, routine disruption and energy accounting. The world speeds up at the very moment our bodies and minds naturally slow down.
This is an alternative invitation: to honour winter as the quiet season and to reclaim rest not as avoidance but as a meaningful, relational act of care.
The sensory cost of festive culture
The sensory landscape of December is intense. Bright lights, unpredictable noise, crowds, heating systems, textured clothing and constant movement. Research on Autistic and otherwise Neurodivergent sensory processing shows that these demands are not small annoyances. They alter how safe, or otherwise, a person feels in a space.
When the environment demands more than the nervous system can comfortably process, regulation becomes harder and energy drains faster. December concentrates these pressures. Everything familiar becomes louder and faster at the exact moment we have less capacity to absorb it.
Why Christmas may feel different for Neurodivergent people
Christmas can take the challenges we face throughout the year and magnifies them.
Routines shift as workplaces and families move into unusual schedules
Social expectations multiply
Masking increases, especially in family spaces where needs may not be acknowledged
Executive load rises through travel, planning, last minute changes and sensory unpredictability
These are not personal failings. They are structural realities that cluster in December.
Research into monotropism shows that Autistic focus depends on sustained attention rather than rapid switching. ADHD research shows that inconsistent schedules destabilise regulation. The way society organises Christmas goes against both needs.
Performative festivity is a cultural script, not a moral obligation
There is nothing wrong with celebrating. The difficulty comes when celebration is treated as an obligation. The idea that a “proper” Christmas must be loud, sentimental or socially expansive is a cultural script. It works for some people and overwhelms others.
I’m not saying you should abandon cherished traditions, only to give yourself permission to keep the parts that nourish you and let the rest be optional. You don’t owe anyone an overextended version of yourself, and connection doesn’t depend on running yourself into exhaustion.
The gift exchange that finally broke the spell
My mum and I had a very ADHD moment this year. She gave me a £100 voucher, and I handed it back as her gift. We both laughed in relief. It’s not the first time we’ve admitted that the gift exchange ritual had become more stressful than joyful.
People often say we are difficult to buy for. The truth is simple. We are sensory people. Perfumed gift sets, highly scented bath products, glittery packaging and novelty items look festive on a shelf but often become clutter in our homes. These gifts turn into tasks. Things to dispose of, store or manage. They arrive with hidden steps I may not have the capacity for.
Once you see it this way, you realise the gift is not the object but the obligation surrounding it.
The anthropology of gifts (and why it makes no sense)
Anthropologist David Graeber wrote about how, in many ancient societies, gifts were not meant to be balanced but rather intended to leave a small thread open between people. Modern gifting flips this idea and turns it into a performance of equal value, equal effort and equal enthusiasm.
The sensory overwhelm is one issue, but the social maths is another. Gifts become evidence of whether you have correctly interpreted another person’s desires. That is a heavy cognitive lift for anyone. For Autistic or ADHD people it can feel like an exam we didn’t agree to take.
A Christmas my family shaped without realising why
My own family quietly redesigned Christmas almost twenty years ago, long before any of us had diagnoses. We have full fry-up breakfast as our Christmas meal at around eleven. After that the day is open. Someone reads. Someone naps. Someone goes home. There is no pressure to stretch the day into something cinematic or symbolic.
It wasn’t framed as Neurodivergent accommodation. It simply made sense. The traditional timetable of shopping, wrapping, cooking, hosting, noise and extended social exposure was beyond our capacity. Making the day smaller and earlier was the only way it became enjoyable.
This is a helpful counterpoint, not because it is the right way to do Christmas, but because it shows what can happen when the structure of a celebration matches our nervous systems.
When the shape of the day overwhelms you
The contrast is clear when I spend Christmas with my in-laws. Nothing about the people is unkind. The difficulty is the script. Their Christmas runs from about nine in the morning until late at night. There is collective gift opening, breakfast, a long stretch of TV and films, drinking, Christmas dinner, more socialising and games. It is a full day of continuous participation built on the assumption that everyone has the stamina for it. Because of the travel distance there is also an unspoken expectation that we will stay for several days, so the social and sensory load doesn’t end when the evening ends.
For many Neurodivergent people this kind of structure is where overwhelm begins. It isn’t the gathering itself. It is the length, the pacing and the expectation to stay switched on through multiple activities with no natural exit point. Even when I enjoy parts of the day the rhythm clashes with how I function. By mid-afternoon I am slipping into recovery while the rest of the household is only getting started.
My absence isn’t discouraged, but it doesn’t go unnoticed either. The shape of the celebration simply wasn’t designed with my nervous system in mind.
This is what often gets lost in conversations about Christmas overwhelm. It isn’t about rejecting joy. It is about the mismatch between a highly structured holiday and the actual capacities many Neurodivergent people have. Even when everyone is kind, the format itself can be overwhelming.
The political backdrop: opting out as self-preservation
It also feels impossible to talk about Christmas right now without naming the wider context. We are living through a moment where Neurodivergent people are being publicly questioned and delegitimised. ADHD and Autism are framed as exaggerated, suspicious or convenient. Reviews are commissioned to restrict support. The message in the background is always the same: mask harder, work harder, prove yourself endlessly.
Against that backdrop, the pressure to perform a perfect Christmas becomes absurd. It feels like participating in a pageant designed to reassure everyone that things are fine, even when clearly, they are not.
This is why stepping back isn’t an act of avoidance but a radical act of self-preservation.
When the world finally slows to our pace
There is a stretch of time between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve where everything softens. Shops are quiet. Routines loosen. People collectively decide to hibernate. It is the one moment each year where the pace of the world actually matches the pace of my nervous system.
For many Neurodivergent people this lull is what regulation feels like. A calm breath after weeks of sensory, social and emotional tension. It reflects something I recognise in ‘Looking After Your Autistic Self’ by Niamh Garvey, which describes how stepping back from certain environments or expectations is not avoidance, but a valid form of self-care rooted in sensory and emotional awareness.
This isn’t theoretical. It’s deeply practical.
Reclaiming the quiet season
If Christmas consistently leaves you drained, overwhelmed or out of step with yourself, it may not be you that needs changing. It may be the structure.
Winter is already a slow season. You are allowed to move at that pace. You can choose smaller gatherings, shorter visits, quiet rituals or none. You don’t need to wait until Boxing Day for the world to feel bearable.
Choosing rest is not a failure of festivity. It is a way of honouring yourself and the people you care about.
