GF FIL might not come from xmas dinner... very worried

[Newsnat]

So some background... my FIL is gluten free. Not through choice, he was diagnosed several years ago with celiac disease. My MIL’s way of coping with this was to make everyone in the household go GF at shared meal times, rather than cooking two separate meals every night.

We have never had in-laws round for a meal before (in about two years of living together) but recently went to the effort of buying a full new dining set, enough crockery to accommodate both DP’s family and mine at the same time and arranged a dinner.

My DP asked his parents to come about two weeks in advance of it and they wouldn’t give a straight answer until the day before when they said they wouldn’t be coming because of FIL’s intolerance, even though we made it clear we would make a GF plate for him or he could bring his own (this was apparently a ridiculous suggestion).

I’ve not spoken to in laws about it (FTR - I do get in with them incredibly well, it just doesn’t seem like my place as we are not married) but DP tells me FIL is worried about anyone else other than MIL cooking for him. They don’t tend to eat out since the diagnosis and only to places that are throughly vetted.

The issue we now have is I am pregnant. Due imminently and I really really want baby’s first Christmas to be at our own home with me and DP. Also don’t fancy dragging baby out, plus want to be comfy 8-4 weeks PP in my own surroundings, plus I have my own mum to consider...

Up until now we’ve spent every Christmas since we got together apart at our own parents homes. My mum lives on her own and has agreed to come to us, she’ll sleep on the sofa (bless her) on xmas eve so she isn’t waking up on her own on xmas day (I usually go over night before) and all this will be fine. If DP’s parents agree to come to us for dinner......

My DP hasn’t spoken to them yet as it’s obviously a delicate topic giving the previous incident and I am so so so worried they won’t come for Christmas dinner on their first grandchild’s first xmas and my poor DP misses out on his parents and has to watch me enjoy it with mine. Pregnancy wasn’t planned so we didn’t really realise our last christmases at ‘home’ were our last... it’s so important to me that everyone be together and I also hate feeling like poor DP is being forced to chose between everyone )even though I know he doesn’t feel this way - obviously would chose his baba everytime).

I’ve tried to talk to him about it and he said he should bring it up with his parents sooner rather than later but he his just focussed of on the prospect of labour at the moment.

What should I do? This is really stressing me out and I think FIL is absolutely ridiculous. AIBU?

I can understand their fear of eating anywhere other than their own home with their own food, and they are probably embarrassed that they only solution would be to bring their own food. My elderly parents would be horrified at the thought of causing a fuss.
Maybe there needs to be a frank conversation with the father in law "we understand you are worried about eating elsewhere but we love you and want to cook for you and we know how to do this safely".
Since you will have a newborn, could you use this as a way in: your partner is responsible for cooking the meal, but would really appreciate as much help as possible from his mum to free him up to spend more time with the baby on the day. That way, you're still making dinner for all and his mum gets to hands-on supervise the GF aspect of the meal?
Bless your mum for sleeping on the sofa.
Christmas at your house sounds like it will be wonderful, you clearly care so much for all of them. Enjoy!

I think you should just carry on with your plans , but leave the option open if they change their mind . Perhaps your DPs parents could be invited round for a few hours after the meal if they don’t wish to come for the meal. Maybe next year your FIL will feel that he doesn’t want to miss out on his grandchild and will feel more able to risk coming .

It's hard to understand how ill you can feel as a coeliac with even the tiniest bit of cross-contamination. Yes, it should be easy to cook a gf roast but sometimes things go wrong unintentionally. They may also have got themselves in to such a panic that just the thought of straying outside their controlled environment is a massive stress to them. That isn't a nice way to be feeling in the build up to Christmas or on the day itself.

Is there any way you can see them at Christmas and take food away from the whole visit?

I would offer a few different options if you are happy that they pick any of these:

1. You don't see them at all on Christmas day. Big shame for the big family celebration but might be easier on you with all the other stress around new baby and potential food fallout.
2. You offer to pay for all the food but his mum is involved with buying it and brings her own food prep and cooking equipment. If she also wants to share the cooking with your DP or oversee it to put their minds at rest then that's also fine.
3. You have an earlier Christmas meal for you guys and your Mum and then invite your in laws over for Christmas afternoon/evening presents/celebration. No food, or just shop bought gf snacks that you can open in front of them.
4. They come over earlier in the day for a non-food related celebration then go home for their own dinner and you have yours with your mum.

It really isn't worth falling out with them about this. It's lovely you want to all be together and showing you are happy to compromise how is enough in itself. You will have other things to occupy your mind and don't want added stress ruining that, either!

go to a big supermarket (not Aldi or Lidl they don't do much gluten free) like Tesco, Asda or Sainsburys - they have whole section of ready made things like gravy, & even stuffing ask them if they have a allergy diet list - many of them can provide this, You will see that their is plenty of Christmas based stuff. or do fresh fruit with cream for afters & get gluten free mince pies (you genuinely cant taste the difference!) check online NHS (I think) or Celiac Charity website where they have a list of foods that are OK or not suitable. Having Celiac Disease is serious adapting to it for one day or one meal if you clean up very carefully first & make sure you don't cross contaminate is possible

Runmybathforme

Coeliac disease isn't a gluten intolerance, it's an autoimmune condition (Like lupus, ulcerative colitis, Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis) and it's trigger to start attacking the body from inside out is the ingestion of gluten.

Unlike an allergy it doesn't matter how sensitive or not you are to the gluten, it's still doing damage even if you have no symptoms. So your friend might be 'fine' eating out if her coeliac is 'silent' but she's still at risk from the same damage as the person with coeliac who is throwing up for a week.

So yes he might not go into anaphylactic shock but any gluten he eats will be poisoning him. So it is serious and he isn't being 'ridiculous'

And actually, following the Pret A Manger issue recently it's getting harder to find places that say they do gluten free because no one wants to get sued. Most places now only offer a 'no gluten containing ingredients' (NGCI) menu not a gluten free menu which has a legally protected status and means there should be any risk of cross contamination.

He is being ridiculous, not about the seriousness of the condition, but about never wanting to eat in someone else's house when they have taken all steps necessary to accommodate his dietary requirements.

If it was a nut allergy, I could understand it, I would never be able to say my kitchen was nut-free at Christmas. But if you are cooking from scratch, it is far easier to say there is no gluten.

OP has done everything she can, just because someone has an health condition, it doesn't mean that everyone in their family has to be dictated to in terms of where everyone else goes to eat at Christmas. PIL can decide that in spite of the OP's best efforts, there is still a risk of him becoming ill, so they won't be joining them for Christmas dinner. They don't get to say where OP and the rest of the family spend their Christmas.

Runmybath Coeliac disease is not an intolerance. It is an auto-immune disease in which gluten damages the intestine.

People get it to different degrees and it can be very severe.

Not sure we are in a position to judge whether the FIL should ‘get a grip ‘ or not.

I think you have to give up the idea of having everyone at yours on Christmas Day - make an arrangement to see your in laws on boxing day for a meal, or pop over to theirs on Christmas day with the baby for a couple of hours.

Chances are with a new baby you might be quite glad not to have a house full of people - you might want to hang out in your PJ's, your baby might be one who feeds almost constantly (I had one of those !) and you won't want to be worrying about guests.

Your DFIL has a serious condition even cross contamination could make him seriously ill - it is very understandable that he wants to be certain he won't be ill over Christmas, or to feel more at ease in an environment he knows is safe for his dietary needs.

It can be very isolating having a disease that has dietary requirements that are very important. Often people don;t totally get it, and there is always a risk of making a mistake. And it's worse if people think you are being silly or precious or awkward when you just want to make sure you don't feel really unwell. I think your DFIL's need to be able to relax knowing he has safe food over Christmas trumps your want to have everyone at yours for your baby's first Christmas (baby will not care in the slightest and will feed, sleep and poop through it all quite happily)

Hello - thank you everyone for your replies. I really wasn’t expecting this to end up trending when I was lying wide awake and over thinking at 3am.

I just want to make it clear that my PIL are NOT trying to dictate where we go and what we do and I also dont have any sort of notion of an idyllic Christmas with a newborn - I am very aware of what the reality will be and all I really want is for everyone to be together and I am just trying to find a way to make that happen.

A lot of people have touched on the fact the holidays change after having a baby and i completely understand that but as I said before my main concern is for DP. I don’t want him to feel caught in the middle or like he is missing out in any way or resentful with his parents possible absence. Like I said in my OP, he’s not had the discussion yet - I am basing this on a previous attempt to host a family dinner.

I really just want everyone to be together and happy.

Also thank you to everyone for their practical suggestions re. GF alternatives etc and to other celiac sufferers for their insight into the condition - it’s been really helpful to understand where the fear may be coming from as I am close with MIL but FIL is a man of few words and as I wasn’t around when he was first ill and diagnosed I don’t have a full understanding of the severity of it or how it fully affected him.

"Do you know what would be helpful? If someone could come on to the thread and explain how easy it is to prepare a gluten-free Christmas dinner"
Really? It's not that hard. You buy a plain Turkey and put it in the oven. You par boil plain potatoes and roast them in fat with parsnips. Cook veg as normal. Job done. Never had Yorkshire puds for Christmas, they go with beef, not turkey. We never had pigs in blankets in our house anyway. Just avoid stuffing and gravy. I really dont see what the issue is.

Runmybathforme He doesn't have an intolerance, or an allergy. He has an autoimmune condition. For many people with Coeliac disease, even a single crumb containing gluten (easy to fall onto a plate without anyone noticing) can cause severe symptoms and permanent damage to the intestines. A single crumb.

Yorkshire puds don’t just go with beef!

I haven’t had time to read all the messages so apologies if this has been suggested. My DS has coeliac and I totally get where your FIL is coming from, it’s really worrying eating at other people’s houses. My suggestion is ‘COOK’ if you have one near you? Almost everything in their Christmas Day meal selection is gluten free. (Gravy, stuffing; pigs in blankets etc) all labelled up on their website/catalogue. Plus all comes frozen and can cook straight from frozen so will be super easy with a newborn. You could order before the baby arrives, put it in the freezer and MIL can be in charge of heating/plating it up. We’ve used it for the last 2 years to do an easy GF Xmas day and it’s really straightforward. The only extra thing I have to do is make homemade GF bread sauce with GF bread.

If FIL only eats MIL’s cooking he’s unlikely to trust food from COOK.

OP I really just want everyone to be together and happy.

But your presuming what that looks like. Perhaps your DP would like to spend it with his new family? Perhaps your in-laws would find things easier if they could eat at home?

Really? It's not that hard. You buy a plain Turkey...

@TabbyMumz I wasn't being serious. Have you RTFT?

I really just want everyone to be together

But if everyone doesn't want to be together then that's that. You're worrying over things that you don't know are even an issue. You don't know if your partner wants to spend Christmas with his parents. You don't know if he wants to spend Christmas with just you and your baby. You haven't really discussed any of it. You're stessing over the maybes.

Talk to your partner first. Decide what you (as a family) would like for Christmas day. Then make your suggestions to your families and see what they would like. Then adjust your Christmas Day to accommodate all!

It might mean your partner waking up with you Christmas morning and then going to his own house for dinner with his parents while you have dinner with your mum. It might mean him staying and having dinner and visiting his parents in the evening. It might mean having Christmas Day at yours with your mum, and Boxing Day at his parents.

There are very very many options other than "everyone together".

Lovely OP, just quit fretting!

You seem MUCH more worried about this than your DP, who hasn’t even brought up the subject of Christmas. It doesn’t seem like its a big deal to him.

DP tells them you’re staying at home for Christmas and would they like to come for lunch? They say yes or no. If no, DP can offer arrangements like MIL helping him prep lunch, or them coming just for the afternoon (no food).

You seem to be so concerned your DP will feel like he’d be missing his folks if they didn’t come, but if so he’s hardly prioritising it as he doesn’t want to discuss it with them!

Stop worrying

I'm GF and I take food everywhere I go I hate putting people out, why can't he do that?.

"Do you know what would be helpful? If someone could come on to the thread and explain how easy it is to prepare a gluten-free Christmas dinner"

Really? It's not that hard. You buy a plain Turkey and put it in the oven. You par boil plain potatoes and roast them in fat with parsnips. Cook veg as normal. Job done. Never had Yorkshire puds for Christmas, they go with beef, not turkey. We never had pigs in blankets in our house anyway. Just avoid stuffing and gravy. I really dont see what the issue is.

@TabbyMumz, the bolded post was saracastic! Because everyone and his dog was posting how to make a gluten free Christmas dinner when the OP had alreeady said that her DH had cooked gluten free for his dad for years!

You just demonstrated exactly why I was laughing. People weren't rtfOP never mind rtft. And you also did neither.

Yorkshire puds don’t just go with beef!
Traditionally they do. I realise nowadays they are put with everything. We never used to have them for a Christmas dinner.

Sara Clara.....I did read most of it. I saw it was in bold, but there was no comment or funny face after it to indicate the poster was laughing at the comment, so I presumed they had just put it in bold by mistake.

Why is it so important to you that everyone is together? I don't know anyone who has both sides of the family together at Christmas, everyone alternates or similar.

We were with my parents when it was DC1's first Christmas and he was 10 months. PIL were at ours at DC2's first Christmas when she was 2 days old. It wasnt a big deal for anyone.

@DappledThings - obviously not read my full post properly. My mum is on her own and I am an only child. We need to spend it with my mum and therefore can’t alternate. Unless you would have someone spend Christmas on their own for the sake of ‘what most people do’. I don’t want partner to become resentful of this and therefore trying to find a way to accommodate everyone at the same time. Lucky all these people with so much family around they can just hop between them all - getting really fed up with these kinds of replies. ‘Why does it matter’. That’s not really helpful or what I was asking for advice about.

Alright so if DP isn't wanting to address it maybe it isn't such a bug deal to him. It obviously isnt to your PIL and it sounds like you're going to end up disappointed because not everyone feels the same as you do

But OP your dilemma isn't about your DM being alone at Christmas, it's about your in-laws once turning down a dinner invitation.