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“What are we getting Kelsey this year?”

At this point, I can generally get a sense of when my wife will undoubtedly ask me that question around the holidays.

It’s a simple question, right? We’re fortunate to come up with a list of family and friends that we purchase gifts for throughout each season.

But, for my sister, it’s never necessarily been an easy answer. Mostly, because the exchange and the exercise can feel flat. One strong aspect of Kelsey’s autism is her commitment to her repetitive beats of the day. She’s a creature of habit and routine. That extends to the items that she interacts with on a daily basis. Quite frankly, so many of the gifts that we give are duplicates of things we have purchased for her year after year.

The list is easy to recall off the top of my head:

• DVD’s
• Board games
• Bubble wrap (I joke, but we went through a phase where this was a consistent gift for years. Kelsey’s obsession with popping every single bubble from packages that would come in throughout the day inevitably led to her popping every single one of those little circles.)

These are essentially the go-to staples that she uses and enjoys religiously every day. In fact, at a moment’s notice, you can find Kelsey amongst a sea of DVDs towering around her as she sits and watches specific pieces on a portable DVD player. Some have been watched so many times that we end up just replacing the worn-out versions when that expiration date inevitability comes.

There’s no doubt that we’re fortunate to come from a family who can be generous with gifts. And I sympathize with the frustration that myself, my wife and others have expressed when buying gifts for someone who is a habit of routine.

I could easily see someone reading this and thinking:

1. Just don’t get a gift.
2. Just get the same things that she likes.

But, we’ve come to learn that gifts can serve an interesting purpose in her life. Yes, it’s easy to default to getting her one of the three things on her go-to list. But, some of us have found it as a way to try and push her out of her comfort zone. To introduce an activity or to find something adjacent that gets her to do something just ‘slightly’ different during the day.

It’s important to not have high expectations of what a gift can do. There’s no magical present that is going to push her into being interested in an activity or picking up a brand-new hobby. If that’s the goal with the gift, then you’re missing the much bigger point. What it does, is that it serves as a slight nudge. Instead of a board game, we shift to a craft, where for maybe 15 or 20 minutes a day, she begrudgingly does something that she would rather not do. But, more times than not, what we’ve found is that it sparks something different for that day, or more precisely, for a moment.

Kelsey’s persistence in the routine and her desire for isolation can make new meaningful moments hard to come by. But, she’s always been one to be excited about opening a gift or a ‘present’ as she exclaims any time there’s something special for her. And, like many children, she scoffs and quickly pushes aside new clothes that might be gifted to her. She looks for that ‘toy’ to be excited over (but let’s face it, it’s more precisely one of three items listed above).

And so that’s where the optimism comes in. That is because of how much she looks forward to it, that there’s that chance to introduce something new, even just for a fleeting moment.

More than likely, it becomes something that we’re able to carry a laugh over. Maybe it’s something that is an utter failure and Kelsey responds with a ‘no thank you.’

But it creates a moment.

So, gifts don’t need to be impressive. They don’t need to be something you’ll remember and cherish forever. But it can create a moment, which can be spectacularly beautiful.

Even if it is just bubble wrap.

Erik James Rancatore is the Agency PR and Media Relations Director for Bader Rutter. His career has spanned marketing, communications, branding and public affairs, where he has helped shape and lead campaigns from the recreational boating industry to nuclear science and state government for well over a decade. He holds a M.A. in Media and Communications from Northeastern Illinois University.

He and his wife Megan have been together for over 18 years, and they have two children that they adore, Flynn (6) and Poppy (2). Of course, he’s also the proud big brother of Kelsey.