“It’s Christmas time,
there’s no need to be afraid. At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish
shade…” and
in my world of disability, it’s full of wheelchairs, blurred vision, love and
laughter.
I’m Emma Purcell, a 24 year old woman living in Alton, Hampshire. I
have quadriplegic cerebral palsy and registered blind. I’m the blogger of Rock For Disability, a writer at Disability Horizons, a content advisor at Muscular Dystrophy UK, the Hampshire
Champion at AccessAble and graduated with a
BA (Hons) in Journalism from the University for the Creative Arts.
Despite
the challenges I face with my disabilities on a daily basis, I’ve grown up with
fond and happy memories at Christmas time that I will treasure forever. Here
are my 5 favourite Christmas memories:
1. Festive fancy dress
When I was aged 7, we had a fancy dress day on the last
week of school before the Christmas holidays. I decided to be extra creative
and take advantage of my wheelchair. I dressed up as Santa Clause with my
wheelchair turning into his sleigh. Everyone thought it was brilliant that I
even got awarded best costume in my year group. This proves that having
wheelchair does have its benefits at times!
2. Sending & receiving Christmas cards
At primary school, before I begun to lose my vision, I used
to love writing out Christmas cards to all my classmates and teachers and
receiving them. We had a post box in the school hall and they would be
delivered to us in class. The most amusing thing was the number of children who
spelt my name wrong. I had “Ema”, “Emmar”, “Emer”, “Persil”, “Percel”,
“Pursell” plus many more. The best thing was I went to a mainstream school and
nobody judged me because of my disability and I had plenty of friends to share
the festive occasion with.
3. A family reunion in Scotland
In 2009, my parents, brother and I travelled up to Scotland
to visit our extended family. We rented an accessible cottage near Edinburgh
which had a downstairs bedroom, hoist and wet-room. Because of the distance and
the amount of personal care I require, we don’t get to visit family often but
it was lovely to spend time with my grandparents, uncles and cousins all at
once and enjoy Christmas together.
4. Baking Christmas truffles
A Christmas tradition my Mum and I do every year is bake
chocolate truffles. They are small rich chocolate treats made of digestive
biscuits, coconuts and, of course, chocolate. I enjoy breaking up the digestive
biscuits with a rolling pin and sprinkling the chocolate & coconut sprinkles
over the truffle balls. It’s a fun activity to do whether you’re a child or an adult
and something anyone of any ability can get involved in.
5. A one dollar ticket to the magic kingdom
My all time favourite Christmas memory has to be the 25th
December 2003. We had finished opening all our presents when we discovered two envelopes
in the Christmas tree. My brother and I opened them and found a dollar bill
inside from Dad’s best friend. My first thought was that he was making a joke
as he was known to prank us before. Our parents were sure that this wasn’t a prank
and brought out a videotape. They put the video into the VCR and played it. It
was a promo video for Disney World Florida. It then clicked that we were
actually going to Florida on holiday next year. We were absolutely ecstatic and
it was the greatest surprise I’ve ever had to date.
We travelled
to Florida in February 2004 and it had outstanding accessibility and is still
the best holiday I’ve ever had!
So they are 5 of my favourite memories at Christmas. To see
an extended list of my favourite memories, please check out my blog post at
Rock For Disability which will go live on 21st December 2018.
What are your favourite Christmas memories? Please share
your stories in the comments or on social media!
Thank you for reading and Merry Christmas to you all!
