Gluten-Free Gift Guide for Celiacs (By a Celiac)-2024

Looking for a gift for a celiac? I’ve got you. This gluten-free gift guide includes some of the best gifts I’ve received or some of the things I’d love to get!

This is a great guide if you’re celiac and looking for ideas or if you’re shopping for a celiac!

Some of the links on the page are affiliate links. If you choose to purchase from one of the links, I earn money at no extra cost to you. I’ll only recommend brands I’ve used and love (or an alternative I would book myself). As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I always pay for my own travel. I’ll be sure to let you know if that ever changes. If you choose to click through and purchase – thanks so much for the support!

Just remember, my celiac isn’t your celiac or gluten-free journey (or anyone else’s). Some of the things I’m comfortable with, you may not be, and you may have a different experience with the restaurants than I did. I hope you do because I had a great experience! But, you do you, no judgment and no pressure. I hope to shed some insight to make your planning easier.

1- Start Traditions That Aren’t Gift or Food-Related

The holidays and birthdays can be stressful and I found that my stress level increased after my celiac diagnosis. Consider starting some new traditions.

One of the hardest things is feeling left out of traditions.

Give your celiac the gift of being able to participate in traditions like everyone else.

Some ideas include:

• Lavender picking. We go for my birthday. We go snip lavender at a local farm. I get culinary lavender for the year or a lavender bouquet to display. It’s one of my favorite things we do together and I look forward to it every year.
  
• Decorate Gingerbread houses in winter. Spend time together decorating and maybe make it a competition. You may be able to use a regular gingerbread house kit since no one is eating it anyway. But, check with your celiac to be sure.
  
• Explore a new bakery or try a new recipe together.
  
• Consider making a special dinner instead of going out for celebrations.
  

2- Gift an Experience

I’m a minimalist at my core. I love experience gifts because it limits what goes into a landfill.

Consider a gluten-free baking course, a latte art class, going to paint pottery, ice skating, or anything that involves doing something other than eating gluten-filled food.

Maybe you get some watercolors and follow a YouTube painting tutorial.

Go buy nail polish and learn some DIY manicures.

Go to a museum or see a show.

The sky is the limit and you’ll make so many great memories.

If you are celebrating a special occasion and want to take a trip there are great gluten-free vacation cities.

Your celiac loved one will feel like you see that there is so much more to them than their diagnosis. That’s a powerful feeling because it often feels like it takes over everything!

Gifts for the Gluten-Free Traveler or Adventurer

Reusable Silicone Bags so they can pack snacks with them and reuse the bag throughout the trip.

Packing cubes are a lifesaver. Having everything organized in your bag makes the whole trip better.

Individual trail mix packs are the perfect plane snack. Honestly, they’re great to carry around every day.

Celiacs always need their phone when traveling to look up restaurants, ingredients, or translations. A power bank makes sure they never have a dead phone.

Celiacs have to travel with a lot of stuff. So, having a bag or day pack that can carry everything is a must. My favorites are this bag from Madewell or my fjallraven backpack.

This rain jacket is clutch. It’s light and packs small but it’s waterproof and knocks down the wind when I need it to.

I love my Nikon mirrorless for traveling.

Gifts for a Gluten-Free Kitchen

Gluten-free Cookbooks including How Can it Be Gluten Free Volumes 1 and 2, Gluten-free on a Shoestring, and Cooking for Isaiah are some of my favorites.

Celiacs usually eat a lot of rice. Our rice cooker is the most used appliance in our house. This one makes the best rice. This one does a great job too if you’d like a more reasonable option.

My stand mixer is the second most used appliance in our kitchen. It was a wedding gift and I still love it so much! It was pricey but it’s amazing.

Gifts for New Celiacs

The Gluten-Free Grocery Guide saved me in my first year of celiac. Having a researched list of products I could eat made grocery shopping so much easier. I was still learning and having a resource like this really made my life easier. The electronic version was nice because I could have it on my phone and search for products as we shopped.

Gluten is My Bitch gives you some recipes and some laughs. It’s nice to be able to laugh about your diagnosis and feel less alone.

If you want to splurge and spoil your celiac consider shipping some bagels or bread to them from Modern Bread and Bagel. It’s one of my favorite places on the planet.

Alternatively, find the gluten-free bakery nearest you and take a road trip! Make sure they have plenty of time because it’s hard to choose when you’re not used to having many options!

For Spoiling Your Celiac

10 Trends to Seduce Your Best Friend – This is a cute little romance novel but the main character has celiac disease. It’s not the focus of the story but it’s the first novel I’ve read where celiac is mentioned at all!

PF Candle Co. makes some of my favorite candles. Celiac or not there is something nice about a new candle.

Tarte Cosmetics is a gluten-free brand. If your celiac loves makeup consider a gift card to Ulta or some Tarte products.

Head to Trader Joe’s, Aldi, or Whole Foods and buy some gluten-free goodies or mixes. Try them with your celiac and rank your favorites!

Get on Etsy and find stickers or jewelry that they wouldn’t usually buy for themselves.

Give a gift card to their favorite clothing store.

Gifts you SHOULDN’T give a celiac

There are some things that you should avoid giving celiacs:

• Food that isn’t labeled as certified gluten-free. Unless you know how to read labels the same way your celiac does just skip food that isn’t certified. But, I did have someone gift me fresh raspberries once and it was so cute and delicious!
• Any food you bake at home. This one is hard. Unless your celiac knows your kitchen and practices OR you are also gluten-free this is a gift that causes stress. It’s so thoughtful but it’s so risky for celiacs to eat things if they don’t know how it’s been cooked. There are too many questions. So, just avoid it unless you’re positive your celiac would feel safe.
• Any experience that involves food that isn’t gluten-free.

Other than things like that you should be okay! If it could have gluten in it just don’t go there. There are so many other options to show that you’re thinking about them!