Ah, you shouldn’t have ….

Christmas. That time when it is better to give than to receive.

Should I then, I wondered, give my blog’s readers something practical and useful, and steer all you loyal gluten-free readers towards some terrific ‘free from’ Christmas food ideas over on the FreeFrom FoodsMatter website, or else some ‘free from’ skincare gift suggestions for all the family, compiled by yours truly at the Skins Matter website?

Or perhaps, I thought, I should tell you all about the other useful Christmas-related stuff out there, like Gluten Freek’s Festive Survival Guide, or her Free From and Festive Guide, compiled with the brilliant contributions of many terrific bloggers?

Or why not alert you to The Happy Coeliac’s Gluten-Free Baking at Christmas book?

Or maybe I should sing the praises of Kevin’s Gluten Free Christmas blog, or indeed Gluten-Free Cake Lover Kelly’s, or Little Missed Gluten’s aptly titled ‘Get Stuffed!’ post, instead.

Or perhaps I should make an effort to identify the Worst Christmas Present for a Coeliac Ever, and focus mostly on that instead?

Well – it is silly season …

Three nominations below – I’m sure you can do better, but pick your favourite if you can’t. Just don’t read the following when you’re holding a credit card and have been at the mulled wine, would be my advice …

Let’s kick off with this “Framed Print of Artists depiction of coeliac disease from Science Photo Library”. Now you may well be feeling some sympathy for this unfortunate, undiagnosed chap who has evidently mislaid his clothing in a field of wheat (dude, we’ve all been there), but try to set aside feelings of compassion for a second to instead stand back and marvel at the attractive hues of yellow and blue the artist has chosen to depict the background to this scene, then ponder and admire the “Wood Grain effect Artcore molding” of the frame, and finally take a minute to properly relish the overall magnificence of this rendering of autoimmune disease. Perfect for the coeliac who wants nothing more than to adorn their wall with an image of a poor sick bloke in the nuddy with some gluten thriving under a warm sky, don’t you think? And a snip at £25.

Next, everyone knows coeliacs love puzzles (or is it pombears? I forget…), so how about this … not ten-piece, not twenty-piece, but THIRTY-piece “Stay Away From Me I’m GlutenFree” jigsaw puzzle to tax your booze-sozzled brains over the holiday season? It should keep you busy for at least thirty seconds in between mouthfuls of GF Christmas puddings, and no, I quite agree with you, I don’t think there’s anything remotely sexual about any of the imagery either.

But before you rush to vote for that, first check out this “Intestine showing coeliac disease Photo Mug”. Now surely this would win hands down, were it not for the facts that the image is “printed using sublimation ink process”, and that the mug is both dishwasher safe and microwave safe, all of which surely saves it from the automatic ignominy of winning top prize. Does it have any other redeeming features? I suppose it offers a real alternative to your sporty mug: why drink out of a receptacle emblazoned with your footie team’s colours when you can have one depicting the villous atrophy that may have led to your severe malnutrition prior to diagnosis? AND: what lovely shades of pink in those mucosa. Yours for 16 bucks.

Please do worse. And Happy Christmas! 

Postscript: Your Nominations...

Thank you, David J, for this 'Got Villi?' T-shirt and 'Nearly Dead from Eating Bread' Tankard.

And here's a click through link to Laura's (Little Missed Gluten) Framed Print of Wheat Allergy from Science Photo Library, from her comment #1.