Accessible Christmas

With thanks to Stella Young is the editor of Ramp Up.

Decorating the tree can be quite the access challenge. Credit: Fluer Suijten (Stock.Xchng)

Well, I'm ready for Christmas. My lightweight, appropriately-sized presents are wrapped. My wheelchair accessible travel to see my family is booked. My chair has had her Christmas cut and polish.

 

I do really like Christmas. Apart from a few traditions that make this time of year a bit, well, inaccessible for me. As a wheelchair user, and a rather small one at that, I think there are a few changes we could make to Christmas that would make it much more equitable.
For a start, does the prize ornament really have to go on the top of the tree? Every year I go to the effort of dragging the hefty plastic tree out of the cupboard and assembling it. And before you jump in with how much lovelier a live tree is, you try being less than a metre tall and lopping down the real deal. I love nothing more than popping on some cheesy Christmas carols and decorating to my heart's content. I always have a jolly old time, until I step back to admire my work and realise I've only managed to decorate two-thirds of the way up the tree. And forget about that star that's supposed to go on the top. In my house, the star sits about half-way up jutting out the side like a poorly-fitted prosthetic limb. Visitors know not to mention it, it's a sore point.

When December rolls around every year, people start panicking about their Christmas shopping, and disabled people are no exception. I've noticed that the increased amount of people in shopping centres can have some extra consequences for wheelchair users. There are more people to interrupt you while you're waiting in ludicrously long queues to ask what's wrong with you. More people to pat you on the head while you're waiting at the lights. More people to hang their hefty shopping bags on you at the tram stop. Not all of these things are bad, don't get me wrong. I've scored many a handy item by taking off with someone else's Christmas haul when they've mistaken my mobility aide and personal space for a luggage rack.

What I don't appreciate about Christmas shoppers is that in the rush to buy their Aunt Mabel just the right shade of pashmina, they just don't look where they're swinging their parcels. Not a Christmas shopping expedition has ever gone by without me receiving a nasty thwack to the face with a household appliance concealed in a shopping bag. My family now expect me to have a black eye at Christmas lunch. If I'm not sporting a shiner, they assume I haven't gotten them any presents.
The other Christmas tradition I think we could perhaps tinker with in the name of increasing access is our old friend the turkey. So far, I've gotten away with going home for Christmas and having my lovely Mum cook the turkey but now that I'm a grown up, it'll eventually be my turn to host Christmas and do the lunch. As I mentioned, I'm kind of small. The turkey is, as birds go, one of the more humongous ones. Hoofing a meal that's weighs about the same as you into an oven is no mean feat and I'm a bit frightened of doing a Sylvia Plath.

I know I could probably avoid all of these little inaccessible Christmas pitfalls. I could forego the average height tree and decorate a bonsai, do my shopping online and cook one of those little turkey rolls instead of a whole hulking bird, but I can't help thinking it just wouldn't be the same. A bit of Christmas inaccessibility adds to the fun at this time of year. Besides, I make up for it by using the tinsel I can't put on the top of my tree to adorn my chair instead.

Add any of your wheelchair accessible Christmas tips.