A Happy Gluten Free Christmas for Your Celiac Child: Seven Strategies to Keep the Season Gluten Free

Christmas – especially a gluten free Christmas – takes a lot of planning.

Of course you want your celiac child to enjoy the same treats as everyone else… but sometimes you wonder if that is going to be possible! Mince pies, Christmas cakes, selection boxes and advent calendars… there seems to be gluten in everything! Seven strategies which have helped me enormously in planning a gluten free Christmas for <i>my</i> celiac child. I hope they help you with yours!

1. Plan ahead and spot the danger areas. Go through your family’s Christmas itinerary and work out where a gluten free diet might be compromised. Working through my calendar the other day I remembered that the School Christmas Play is always a mince-pie fest. I need to go prepared with my own gluten free mince pies. Christmas parties need to be planned for, even simple events like a carol service will usually serve mince pies or cookies.

2. Bake in advance and freeze enough individual bags of goodies for each event. I usually take a gluten free mince pie and a gluten free cookie to each event for my celiac son, so I have little bags in the freezer ready to take out on the morning of the event (and because they are safely in the freezer they cannot be eaten ‘by mistake’!)

3. Speak to your child’s school about any Christmas parties or events they might be putting on and how your child will be catered for. You may have to provide your own food, or they might be willing to do that for you if they are very understanding, but have a plate ready laden of food that your child can eat. Even sharing a bowl of gluten free snacks with other children could put the celiac child at risk of contamination by gluten on their fingers. It’s not worth the risk! You may also want to check if they are planning to do any baking around Christmas and talk that through carefully with the class teacher.

4. If you are going away for Christmas, speak to your hosts as soon as possible! Make sure they thoroughly understand the gluten free diet because there is nothing worse than spending every meal wondering if your child will be ill afterward. I often find that people are willing to buy in or cook gluten free food, but often don’t realise the dangers of cross-contamination from say, cutting the gluten free Christmas cake with the same knife as the ‘normal’ Christmas cake. Offer to take some gluten free christmas cookies, gluten free mince pies or a gluten free Christmas cake so you know your child will have enough gluten free food. I hate rationing!

5. Bake lots! Gluten free Christmas food is so expensive if you have to buy it all, and gluten free mince pies cookies and so on are relatively quick and easy to make. You can use your usual recipe with gluten free flour and baking powder, or have a look on my blog for gluten free christmas recipes (see below). A gluten free Christmas cake is a Must, and again, no harder to make than any other cake. If you are reading this, thinking ‘I never bake anything! I buy the lot of it!’ Well, it might be worth spending a Sunday afternoon in the kitchen with the kids! I tend to bake gluten free for the whole family – celiac or not – which means my celiac child feels no different to everyone else.

6. Beware of the hidden gluten in selection boxes and other Christmas candy. I found that selection boxes may be mainly gluten free… but there is just one bar that is forbidden. It’s not worth it! And a bit rough on the child if they have to lose a bar as soon as they open it. I found some big glass storage jars this year, and filled them with candy that I know is gluten free. They look fantastic and really Christmassy with a big red bow on top – and my celiac child will probably still make himself sick… but his I know it won’t be because of gluten!

7. Look for gluten free Christmas dinner alternatives for the whole family. Gluten free turkey stuffing and gravy tastes just as good. If everyone is eating the same, you don’t have to watch your celiac child the whole time, you can just relax. Of course, if you are eating in someone else’s home this is harder, but hopefully you have discussed it with them carefully beforehand and your child also knows what he/she can and can’t eat.

Have a fantastic gluten free Christmas!