The Hazelnut That Ruined Christmas

Our nut allergy correspondent, Sarah Robert, presents a sad update to her ongoing coverage of nuts she’s accidentally eaten. Get it together, Sarah’s mom! (Joke, Sarah is not actually mad at her, she just wants her to feel a little guilty.) Also, it obviously was not a Ferrero Rocher, she knows those are forbidden to her.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a large construction site fire near my home. I was forced to evacuate for a few hours, as the authorities were afraid the fire would jump to a nearby gas station or that a damaged crane would collapse onto neighbouring buildings. Thankfully, I was able to return home that night, but many were not. Last week, a massive ice storm caused power outages all over eastern Ontario; fortunately, my parents’ power was restored after about an hour. Many Canadians celebrated Christmas in the dark this year, without heat. Somewhere in the middle of these two things, my piece about nut allergies came out on this site. Having narrowly avoided any real consequences from both of these disasters, I settled down to celebrate Christmas with my family.

On Christmas Eve, we went to a family friend’s house for a semi-annual-ish Christmas gathering. The hosts had very thoughtfully marked a dessert that had peanuts in it. They also made sure I knew that another dessert had pecans in it, despite the fact that there were, very visibly, pecans on top of it. I appreciated this gesture and also their mulled wine. After a few hours of pleasant small talk, we went home and my siblings and I watched Beginners, in our tradition of watching not particularly Christmas-y movies on Christmas Eve.

The next morning my younger sister made Dutch baby pancakes for breakfast, those pancakes made in cast-iron skillets that are all over Pinterest. They were delicious. I received an embarrassment of presents, including a stocking filled with small presents and chocolates. After we finished unwrapping gifts, I reached into the stocking and pulled out a chocolate; the instant I bit into it, I knew.

When you’re about to have an allergic reaction, you know. Sometimes I’ve bitten into a sandwich, to find pesto that wasn’t listed on the menu, and I’ve wondered. I’ve sat there for a full 20 minutes, wondering if an allergic reaction was about to begin any moment now, silently fretting, drinking glass after glass of water, trying to ward it off, only to have nothing happen. But when you’re really about to have a reaction, you can feel it. I tried to deny it, telling myself, “Oh, there must be some traces in here, it’ll be okay, I’ll have some allergy pills and drink several litres of water,” but I knew it was more than just traces. I tried to hide my discomfort, to not let on that this Christmas was about to take a turn for the worse, but I eventually had to admit to my mom that I suspected the chocolate she’d given me contained hazelnuts. She pulled out the box from the recycling bin, and lo and behold, in the fine print: contains hazelnuts.

My mom is usually very good about checking these things. She has a nut allergy herself, though hers manifests mostly as intestinal discomfort, not quite as showy as mine. She’s only accidentally given me nuts once or twice before; the majority of my allergic reactions have occurred at parties or restaurants. The Christmas chocolate that did me in had advertised itself as ‘milk chocolate’ and was from a brand that typically didn’t include nuts in its products. It wasn’t really her fault.

Swelling and itching in my mouth escalated to me sitting, cross-legged, in front of the toilet, retching up mostly orange juice, alternating between throwing up involuntarily and inducing vomiting, because it made me feel less like my throat was going to close up. This went on for about a full hour. My mom apologized repeatedly, and I assured her that it was okay the first few times, but as the puking wore on, I started shrugging off her sincere apologies. I realized that I wanted her to feel guilty, which wasn’t really in keeping with the Christmas spirit. Eventually the puking stage was over and it turned into itching at my eyes, feeling feverish, wheezing, and a lot of sneezing and spitting into a bowl while curled up on the couch watching Bo Burnham’s new special on Netflix. I occasionally spoke to make sure I still could, that my trachea hadn’t closed up. It got bad enough that I got out my EpiPen and kept it close at hand. I seriously contemplated changing out of my sweatpants in case we had to go to the hospital.

The whole reaction lasted about two and a half hours and left me extremely fatigued. My mother had prepared a lovely, vegetarian-friendly Christmas dinner, complete with delicious veggie gravy, but I felt too lethargic to enjoy it. My family made jokes about the allergic reaction and my mom seemed tense and tired of feeling guilty about an honest mistake. She’d put so much preparation into putting together a nice Christmas for her family, but her efforts had been thwarted by a single, malicious hazelnut.

Eventually I regained some of my energy, enough to explain how to play Pandemic, the board game we’d bought for my mom. We worked as a team and cured several diseases (but no allergies), only to have epidemics decimate the entire world twice in a row. Even though we lost, it was fun.

I’m not going to pretend Christmas wouldn’t have been much better if I hadn’t eaten that hazelnut. I’m not going to pretend it didn’t, effectively, ruin Christmas for me. It did. It was extremely unpleasant and I cried through parts of it. It would’ve sucked even if it weren’t Christmas, but it being Christmas made it feel worse. My good attitude about my allergy only extends so far. It wasn’t my mom’s fault – she slipped up for one second, after a lifetime of vigilance, and the packaging should have been clearer.

But even though it was my worst Christmas to date, it wasn’t a bad day. People I love prepared nice meals for me. I got great gifts. I felt loved. Yes, there was that middle bit where I was puking and itching and having trouble breathing, but that bit was temporary, whereas the love of my family is not. Also, my house could have caught fire and we could have been without power for a week, and I managed to dodge both of those calamities. So, in comparison, eating a hazelnut doesn’t seem so bad. Happy holidays!