Yet another type 1 diabetic weighing in.

First, it's nice of you to be concerned -- the holidays can be tough for kids with diabetes.

Second, I would say that, whatever you end up including in the basket, your goal should be to take the child's needs into account without singling him out or making a big deal of it. Kids with diabetes are often made to feel "different, " and, depending on how old the child is, that can be hard. Since the basket is for the family, I would try to make the contents as universally appealing as possible -- nuts, fruit, maybe some non-food items, nothing obviously "diabetic." After all, it doesn't hurt anybody, diabetic or not, to get less refined sugar, especially around the holidays.

There are all sorts of schools of thought about managing diabetes, so I would second the idea of asking the parents for guidelines. Some diabetics don't make a special effort to avoid refined sugar -- I don't, I focus more on total carbs and what form they're in (a glass of orange juice will affect my blood sugar much quicker than a dish of ice cream). It's best not to make assumptions about what the child will be able to eat, much less what he'll want to eat!