Most children learn to deal with their everyday emotions (disappointment, frustration, etc) around the age of three.  However, Christmas is a time of heightened emotions over a long period of time and some children will find that more difficult to deal with.  Children with any kind of developmental delay will find this emotional regulation more of an obstacle.  Thus, little Mary may revert back to throwing things or lose her temper much easier than normal.  Just think how jumpy we get when we are in a heightened state of arousal.  The difference, I think, is that we forget this when the heightened state is a positive one.  It’s as if we think that if the emotional state we are in is positive then our behavior should be positive.  That is not the case.  If I just found out that I won the lottery, I would likely scream with delight, run through the house and jump with joy.   I might even spin people around (I am sure my mother who just had knee surgery would not like that but I probably wouldn’t be thinking of her needs at that moment) and throw things.  I probably wouldn’t be destructive and others would most likely understand that I was happy, but nevertheless, my actions are not really positive behavior.  My point is simply this:  Expect some extra challenging behavior from your little ones, particularly if they have a developmental delay. 

One of the issues I always stress is the need to give children emotion labels.  When we are young, none of us know what happy, sad, excited or frustrated are, yet we all feel those things.  It can be scary to a young child to have these feelings and not know that they are normal feelings.  When we teach children the labels for these feelings, we are also teaching them that they are normal and that we all have them.  This is bigger than you might think.  I remember a 6 year-old boy I was asked to see because his teacher believed he was aggressive.  It turned out that this boy (who had developmental delays) had major fine motor and visual difficulties and his ‘aggressive’ episodes were mainly around the times that he was working on fine motor tasks.  The behavior plan consisted of teaching him the label ‘frustrated’ (to normalize his emotions and to validate his experience of difficulty with fine motor tasks) and to give him appropriate outlets and expressions for his frustration.  It took 2 weeks to see a major change in him.  Yes, his behavior was inappropriate and needed to be punished, but that was not the answer to the problem.  Punishment (if it really is punishment) only reduces a specific behavior.  It does not help a child to mature and learn to respond appropriately. 

I also have always used a calendar with my daughter that signals when important things are happening.  You can use this not only in the normal advent calendar way, but also to signal when visitors are coming and parties will take place.