{"id":843,"date":"2009-12-10T08:36:23","date_gmt":"2009-12-10T07:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/?p=843"},"modified":"2017-05-20T11:55:02","modified_gmt":"2017-05-20T10:55:02","slug":"a-gluten-free-christmas-day-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/a-gluten-free-christmas-day-10\/","title":{"rendered":"A gluten free Christmas: Day 10"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the biggie: the Office Christmas Party.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/wp-content\/christmas-party.jpg\" alt=\"christmas-party\" title=\"christmas-party\" width=\"280\" height=\"210\" align=\"right\" \/>Given how significant a part work plays in our lives, it&#8217;s not surprising that the problems caused unknowingly by co-workers, bosses, trainers and conference organisers are such a common complaint among the gluten free. Often I hear stories of people who choose not to go to the office party because of previous bad experiences, concerns about the catering provision, or because they just can&#8217;t face yet another meal of melon, followed by dry chicken, followed by a plate of fruit. With a meringue if you&#8217;re really lucky.<\/p>\n<p>For the fortunate few, your workplace will be fully aware of your special dietary needs, and will seamlessly &#8211; and privately &#8211; discuss this with you. But we know this isn&#8217;t usually the case.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to go to the office party, then here are my suggestions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you can face it, offer to help organise the event &#8211; then you get some say in the destination. <\/li>\n<li>Otherwise, once the destination is agreed, make your dietary needs known to the organisers. In writing. <\/li>\n<li>Find out where the event is to be; discuss your needs with the catering team at the venue in advance. Go through the proposed menu.<\/li>\n<li>On the night of the event, eat something &#8211; even if it is only the coeliac&#8217;s friend, the banana &#8211; before you go. Take something in your pocket\/handbag (perhaps a wrapped biscuit, or a snack bar). You need to be sure you can eat <em>something<\/em>, so you don&#8217;t end up dancing on the tables. Unless you want to.<\/li>\n<li>On arrival, introduce yourself to the event organiser, the catering team, the hotel management, your waiter&#8230; whoever is front of house that night. Remind them.<\/li>\n<li>If you can&#8217;t bear to go through the explanation one more time, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dietarycard.com\/\">take a dietary card<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>When seated, mention it to your waitress one more time. If something clearly inappropriate appears on your plate DON&#8217;T EAT IT. No, not even to be polite. It&#8217;s your health at stake here, both short term and long term. Be polite, but request a replacement, on a fresh plate.<\/li>\n<li>If a fellow guest says to you <em>&#8220;go on, one bite won&#8217;t hurt, will it, just this once&#8221; <\/em>&#8211; don&#8217;t threaten violence. It&#8217;s not a good look!<\/li>\n<li>If the venue does well, then let them know, after the event. Positive reinforcement is a Good Thing, and will help all those coeliacs coming in to that venue in the future. And let us know too&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And, of course, be careful what you drink &#8211; for the obvious reasons, but also because <a href=\"http:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/?p=312\">many drinks contain gluten<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Enjoy yourself!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the biggie: the Office Christmas Party. Given how significant a part work plays in our lives, it&#8217;s not surprising that the problems caused unknowingly by co-workers, bosses, trainers and conference organisers are such a common complaint among the gluten free. Often I hear stories of people who choose not to go to the office [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[163,1],"tags":[63,74,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gf-christmas","8":"category-living-gluten-free","9":"tag-christmas","10":"tag-christmas-party","11":"tag-office-party","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}