Have Yourself a Braces-Friendly Christmas!

It’s the Christmas season! That means time off from school, making your wish list, decorating your house, and all sorts of fun things you can do with your family and friends.

Let’s get out of the way the Christmas treats you’ll want to avoid with braces so we can get on to the fun stuff.

Foods to Avoid

Candy Canes – Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without candy canes hanging on the Christmas tree. However, candy canes and other hard candies are not safe to eat if you have braces. If you love peppermint, you can have peppermint marshmallows and soft peppermint candies such as “Bob’s Soft Peppermint Candies.”

Sticky Treats – If you have braces, avoid anything with nuts or caramel, such as caramel apples, pecan pie, hard candy, peanut brittle, or caramel apples. These treats can cause damage to braces. Even if you wear Invisalign®, these types of candy can easily get trapped under the clear aligners, creating the perfect environment for cavities.

Nuts: Peanuts, cashews, almonds, and walnuts are hard and can damage your braces, but they can also become stuck around your braces. Almonds, peanuts, and pecans are also frequently found in holiday foods, such as peanut brittle, pecan pie, and brownies. So, watch out for these in desserts as well.

Gingerbread – Your family may have a tradition of making gingerbread houses. You can enjoy the fun of creating one, but the gingerbread typically dries out and becomes too hard to chew safely with braces. You can enjoy soft gingerbread cookies as an alternative.

Foods You Can Enjoy with Braces

Hot Chocolate – You can still enjoy hot chocolate with braces. And even better, you can add toppings like marshmallows, whipped cream, or chocolate shavings. You can dip cookies in your hot chocolate to make them soft enough to eat with braces.

Dinner Feasts – You can still enjoy most Christmas dishes with your braces, such as tender turkey, ham, beef, or fish. Avoid chewing meat still on the bone because you don’t want to bite down hard on a bone with braces accidentally.

Side Dishes: There are lots of sides you can eat. You can load up on mashed potatoes, gravy, dinner rolls, and mac n’ cheese. And don’t be shy about eating soft veggies like creamed spinach, peas, or cooked string beans.

Desserts – you can still have cookies, brownies, cakes, and other soft treats fresh from the oven! Soft-filled pies such as pumpkin, apple, cherry, or cream are great. And, of course, you can have your pie served with ice cream!

December Fun

While eating yummy food is fun, you can do lots of other fun things in our area in Greensboro or Randleman. If you are not sure what you might like to do, we have listed a few activities below.

Here are some ideas for fun in downtown Greensboro:

And here are some fun activities happening in Randleman in December:

 Final Words

Remember, you won’t have to follow the above food tips forever – before you know it, you’ll get your braces off and have a beautiful, fantastic smile. So, enjoy your Christmas with all the fun braces-friendly foods and activities that you enjoy!

Our Warmest Wishes to You!

Dr. Tripp Cobb
Greensboro Orthodontic Office
Randleman Orthodontic Office