Surviving the Holidays with Braces

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, oh my! With so many holidays between the beginning of October and New Years’ Eve, getting through the next few months with braces will take a lot of extra strength! Luckily, you’ve got the Saddle Creek Orthodontics team by your side, and we’re here to help you navigate the tempting foods and slacking habits throughout this holiday season. Here’s how to survive the holidays with braces, SCO style. 

Be Careful with the Sweet Treats

Between Halloween and Christmas, the desserts are abounding this time of year! From cookies to pies to candy, your challenge is making sure you stick to only the braces-friendly sweets this season. Remember that sticky or crunchy treats are off-limits if you want to keep your braces safe. 

Here’s why. The brackets and wires on your braces are durable, but they shouldn’t be tested too much. Too many hard candies can break the bond between your braces and your teeth, causing the bracket to pop off. Sticky foods like caramel can tug against your braces and pull bands off your teeth. Every broken bracket or wire means a longer time spent with your braces, and no one wants that! Check out these alternatives to holiday treats. 

Halloween

Tootsie rolls or Twizzlers land in your bucket while trick-or-treating? Trade those in with a younger sibling for one of their softer candies. Not every Halloween candy works for braces, but you may enjoy treats like Three Musketeers or Reese’s Pieces which are easier on your brackets and wires. 

Christmas

Everyone loves the sweet snacks we leave out for Santa, but not everything that they eat at the North Pole works for patients with braces. If you’re making Christmas cookies with your family, try sticking with the soft options like sugar cookies. Stay away from any cookies with nuts or hard candies baked in, as these can be real bracket-breakers. When it comes to candy, candy canes are not your friend until after your braces come off! Instead, opt for the marshmallows that float in your hot chocolate. 

Choose the Right Kinds of Salty Snacks

Food, food, food! Everyone loves Thanksgiving because of all the food! If the horn of plenty is overflowing at your home, you can sit back and enjoy – just be sure you don’t eat any foods that could harm your braces! Biting directly into certain foods is one of the easiest ways to break your brackets and stay in braces for a few extra months past your original treatment schedule. Here’s how you can avoid it.

Next time you think of biting directly into a turkey leg, remember that there’s a bone in there that could scratch your appliance! The best way to prevent a catastrophe is to pull the meat off of the bone before eating the best part of Thanksgiving dinner (the best part is the turkey, in Dr. Kyle and Dr. John’s opinion, at least). 

The same goes for corn. Instead of biting the kernels right off the cob, cut them off with a knife and eat them with a fork. In fact, the more foods you eat with a fork, the better! Doing so means you won’t risk scratching or breaking your appliance, and that’s what we like to hear!

Reach Out to Your Friends with Braces

Surviving the holidays with braces can be difficult if you feel like everyone around you in your family is enjoying their time without brackets and wires. One great way to celebrate the season while sticking to your straight smile schedule is to reach out to friends who have braces, too! Together, you can plan braces-friendly gatherings with the right foods and activities to get your mind off of caramels and popcorn. 

Steer Clear of Drinks that Stain

Your pumpkin spice latte may be a fun way to celebrate the season, but don’t forget that many drinks can stain your teeth! Staining is easy to clean when you don’t have braces, but when you’ve got brackets that only cover a part of your teeth, you run the risk of revealing white boxes when we take your braces off later on! Drinks like coffee or punch can cause discoloration that can be hard to remove, so opt for water as often as you can. 

Choose Holiday Elastics for Your Braces!

Surviving the holidays with braces means navigating temptation traps throughout the season – and that can get tough quickly! Try to perk yourself up by adding holiday-themed elastic colors that will have all your friends jealous of your holiday cheer. Check out these themes!

Trick-or-Treat for Halloween: orange + green = pumpkin themed 

Thanksgiving Spirit: red + orange + yellow = thankful for straight smiles 

Christmas Cheer: red + green = the most wonderful time of the year

Happy Hannukah: blue + white + silver = light up your smile

No matter what holiday is your favorite or which ones you celebrate, Saddle Creek Orthodontics has the elastic colors to help you spread the spirit.

Celebrate the Season with Saddle Creek Orthodontics!

Dr. Kyle and Dr. John are right here with you while you avoid the season’s temptations – and we know, it really is hard not to eat those Twizzlers leftover from trick-or-treating! Fortunately, you’re not alone when you have the entire Saddle Creek Orthodontics team cheering you on! Staying true to your braces-friendly instructions will shorten your treatment time and give you the straight smile you’ve been waiting for, so it will all be worth it in the end. 

If you’re looking for a good way to stay the course during these next few months, why not follow our team on social media? We’ll be encouraging all of our followers to stay strong, so add us on Instagram today!