{"id":320417,"date":"2025-12-17T06:31:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T06:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/320417\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T06:31:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T06:31:06","slug":"how-curry-for-christmas-dinner-helps-us-avoid-child-meltdowns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/320417\/","title":{"rendered":"How curry for Christmas dinner helps us avoid child meltdowns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">George once clung to an idealised, movie-style Christmas &#8211; perfectly wrapped presents, big meals and a bustling house. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But two of his children have autism and the unpredictability and crowds quickly became overwhelming.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I always had this version of the perfect Christmas in my head,&#8221; he says. &#8220;But when my son spent an entire family gathering standing alone at the end of the garden, I thought: if this isn&#8217;t for him, then who is it for?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Now he builds Christmas around comfort and predictability: staying at home, keeping numbers low and spreading activities out. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">One major change was the meal itself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve stopped having Christmas dinner on Christmas Day,&#8221; he explains and instead they cook it on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Then on the day itself we&#8217;re not stressing about a big project and we just play with the kids and order a curry in the evening.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George once clung to an idealised, movie-style Christmas &#8211; perfectly wrapped presents, big meals and a bustling house.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-320417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}