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Making Christmas Mealtimes Fun and Enjoyable for Kids by Charlotte Stirling-Reed

10th December 2024

Christmas is the perfect time to get children excited about food, especially if you’ve been dealing with picky eaters or struggling to encourage healthy eating habits. The festive season brings an abundance of delicious, in-season, and healthy foods, along with numerous opportunities for social eating. When approached positively, these mealtimes can become enjoyable experiences for toddlers and young children. 

Here are three key tips to help your little ones enjoy eating at Christmas: 

  • Keep mealtimes around Christmas about FUN and don’t focus on the food so much. It’s a busy, exciting day and is just ONE day! 

  • Remember that as long as dinner is pressure free, it can be a great time for kids to see people eating and enjoying food and for them to be exposed to a huge variety of foods too.  

  • Avoid letting toddlers hear you talk about their “food refusal” over Christmas. It’s best to keep food talk positive! 

Also try to focus on all the variety of foods available – and role model enjoyment of a balance of foods.  

Think of the wide the variety of foods you can offer at Christmas - chestnuts, cranberry sauce, tangerines, bowls of nuts and raisins, in-season veggies, gravy, potatoes – as well as the higher sugar cakes and sweets – there is so much to enjoy, not just one type of food.  

Every day can’t be Christmas, but when we’re feeding kids, we CAN emulate some of that Christmas dinner joy by: 

  • Making mealtimes social occasions – even if it’s only two of you 

  • Don’t ONLY talk about the foods 

  • Eat with them and ideally, from as young as possible share the same meals 

  • Let them explore the meal at their own pace – give them independence in their food choices (buffet meals work great at any age) 

  • Offer a variety (not necessarily at each and every meal) 

  • Keep it relaxed, calm and pressure free – SO often the opposite happens at mealtimes, and this can have a knock-on effect for following meals. 

  • Relaxed meals with friends makes eating more enjoyable – your child will feel that too 

  • Keep the pressures off mealtimes – research shows it has the opposite effect – around Christmas it’s likely to be less pressured as so many kids and everyone is having fun. Give example of me pressuring them to eat a forkful of food. 

 Other tips around Christmas weaning/feeding 

  • Remember it’s ONE DAY.  

  • Try and stick to their similar routines so you’re less likely to have them over snacking or getting hangry!!! 

  • Use it as an opportunity for food exploration – so many great foods available – let them explore the variety themselves 

  • Have fun with food 

  • Avoid sweets and added sugar as long as you can. Doesn’t NEED to be offered because it’s Christmas.  

  • Avoid thinking that certain foods are needed for certain occasions e.g. broccoli doesn’t go with cream…Your baby will love exploring.  

  • Enjoy it all yourself – they’ll more likely enjoy the mealtime/foods if they see you enjoying it too 

Christmas and Christmas dinner offer a unique opportunity to engage children with healthy food and make mealtimes more exciting. The festive atmosphere, combined with the abundance of delicious, in-season produce, creates a perfect setting for children to explore a variety of foods and develop a positive relationship with foods too. By involving them in meal preparation and keeping the focus on fun and togetherness, you can turn Christmas dinner into a memorable experience that might just encourage healthy eating habits and joyful mealtimes for years to come. 

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