Tips For A Stress-Free Gluten Free Christmas

With December upon us I thought it was time I shared some tips for a stress-free gluten free Christmas along with some of my favourite seasonal recipes.

I am pleased to share my experience as part of Coeliac UK’s ‘Tales from a Gluten Free Christmas’ campaign #gfchristmas. Visit www.coeliac.org.uk/gf-christmas to find out more.

This is our tenth gluten free Christmas and knowing how stressful many people find Christmas I thought I’d write an article with some of my tips and recipes.

Firstly I want to tackle stress and where it comes from.

Many of us feel overwhelmed with everything that ‘needs’ to be done at Christmas. It can seem like a never ending list of extra things to do. And this year in particular may be challenging for many.

However, as a reformed ‘stress-head’ I’d like to point you towards a different way to approach the Christmas overload.

Last year for the first time since having kids I was entirely relaxed about Christmas and it was wonderful.

How did I do that?

Well I saw the made-up nature of all the ‘should’s’ and ‘must’s’ that I’d created around it. And I trusted that it would all come together in the end. After all, stressing about what presents to buy people doesn’t make an idea pop into your head.

Have you noticed that when you are most relaxed (perhaps in the bath or shower), when there is little on your mind, that you get the best ideas?

What if for a moment you could see that the ‘should’s’ and ‘must’s’ that you have in your life are made up by you? Or perhaps handed down by your well-meaning parents/grandparents/friends/society?

Letting go of those handed down beliefs, free’s us up to doing what we want to do.

This in turn free’s up our mind to have ideas of what to gift people, what food we need to buy and everything else.

When we are less caught up in the noise in our head and more present in the moment we are able to see things more clearly.

If you’d like to find out more about this, head over to my other website here and check out my blogs and videos.

Gluten free Christmas dinner tips

Avoid cross contamination by creating a gluten free Christmas dinner for everyone. Nobody will know the difference.
Prepare the vegetables the night before. Peel and prep the spuds, parsnips and other veg and leave them submerged in water for the evening. Listen to some Christmas music and dance around the kitchen (that bit is optional…but fun!).
A traditional roast dinner is one of the easiest meals to make gluten free. The meat, vegetables and roast potatoes (if homemade) will all be gluten free provided you are buying meat that hasn’t been processed in any way.
You can buy gluten free stuffing. However it’s also very easy to make. Just follow your ‘usual’ recipe and replace the breadcrumbs with gluten free breadcrumbs (I make mine by whizzing pieces of bread in a clean food processor or blender). This is a great way of using up all those dry crusts. Just pop them in the freezer until you have enough to make breadcrumbs!
You can buy gluten free gravy. However, if you want to make it out of the juice from the meat make sure you use gluten free flour or cornflour as the thickener.
Gluten free pigs in blankets can be found in most supermarkets. However, if you can’t find them just buy gluten free chipolatas, wrap them with bacon (naturally gluten free) and bake.
Gluten free bread sauce can be bought but it is also very easy to make with gluten free bread. Just replace your ‘usual’ bread with gluten free bread following any standard bread sauce recipe.
Gluten free Christmas pudding can be found in most supermarkets now however, if you want an alternative pudding you’ll find some recipes listed below.

The most delicious, moist gluten free Christmas cake recipe you'll find. Loved by everyone. #glutenfree #bestchristmascake #glutenfreechristmascake #dairyfreechristmascake #freefromfairy #fairyflour

Gluten free Christmas recipes

So the Christmas dinner is sorted but what about all the other treats?

These days you can buy gluten free versions of practically every Christmas treat. But when you turn them over and read the list of ingredients you may be put off. I certainly am!

So I still make a lot of our food from scratch.

Below I’m going to share some of our favourite gluten free Christmas recipes that we think you’ll enjoy too…