A Sexually Maladaptive Christmas

Christmas has been interesting this year. Working with sexually maladaptive kids has all sorts of obstacles, but one of the hardest ones is to schedule visits. Some cannot be trusted in the community while others can. Some have family and some don't. Some are allowed to leave campus but not go home. Some have victims in their family we must keep them from. The list goes on and on, but we finally got the visit stuff squared away. Today I had a Christmas party with the kids before all their visits started. It was an interesting way to celebrate the holiday, but it was a lot of fun. The kids got onto the topic of how some families decorate using images of a black Santa, while others use images of a white Santa based on their own family's ethnicity. One of the kids got really upset and stated that 'Santa was white' defensively. His peers told him to calm down, saying that Santa wasn't even real, to which he started crying. I was shocked to learn that this teen who molested his sister and watched pornography on a regular basis was still naive enough to belief in Santa. We had lots of snack foods for the kids and played some games for bags of candy. Then the kids opened their gifts. Each resident gets $50 worth of presents. Some of them didn't seem to care much while others were very appreciative. One kid in particular became so excited when he saw he had seven boxes to unwrap that he had to leave the room to calm himself down. He continued to thank God and cry as he opened his gifts. He specifically asked for Cool-Aid Jammers, so we bought him five cases of them, a sweatshirt, and a remote control car that transforms into a dinosaur. It wasn't much, but he was very grateful. Another resident wanted a cross necklace, but didn't think he would get one for under $50. He was so surprise to unwrap one! My staff got lucky and found a really nice cross that was really on sale, having enough money left over to buy him a hoodie. It was such a blessing to see these kids so happy.