Though I feel the holidays are the most wonderful time of
the year, it can be daunting celebrating your first holiday as a vegan. I went
vegan the beginning of December 2014, so Christmas was my first holiday as a
vegan. Since then, I have had many more years experiencing vegan holiday’s with
the family, not only Christmas, but Fourth of July and Thanksgiving as well. Of
course there are more holidays to be celebrated, but these are the three our
family gets together for the most involving food. In this post, I will
be giving you some tips on how to celebrate the holidays with non-vegan family
members and sharing some recipes that I really enjoy and think you might too.
But first, everyone knows what basic non-vegan ingredients are
like meat, dairy, and eggs, but there are some not-so obvious ingredients to
look out for. Here are two helpful links for vegans to check out:
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here are my tips
to celebrating the holidays with non-vegan family members!
TIP #1: LET YOUR
FAMILY KNOW YOU’RE VEGAN
My first tip is letting your family, friends, or whoever
you’re celebrating the holidays with, know that you’re a vegan. We always
celebrate with family, and if your family is like mine, it is always one person
(the host) preparing the feast for the whole family. This is so important for
everyone to know, especially the host, because the host probably woke up that
morning at an ungodly hour to prepare the feast for everyone, and maybe even
started prepping things the night before getting everything ready, only to have
you show up and not eat anything. Yes, other people will be there to partake in
the feast, but it may cause hurt feelings between you and the host because they
may feel insulted, attacked, unappreciated, that they’re cooking isn’t good
enough for you, and so on. It’s just better to establish that you’re vegan
ahead of time to avoid conflict. I went vegan in December 2014, weeks before
Christmas, so it was important for the family to know. My older sister, the
host, said I need to figure out food for myself because she’s not going to make
a big feast for everyone, then an entire separate vegan meal for me, which is
totally understandable and I wasn’t expecting her to think or do that at all. So this
brings me to my next tip.
TIP #2: PREPARE AND
BRING YOUR OWN FOOD
The last thing your host needs is the stress to figure out
how to make a vegan feast, so hop in the kitchen and make the vegan version of
what everyone else is going to be eating. This is also a great time to show
others that veganism isn’t such a weird thing and that you can eat the same
dishes that taste the same, just no cruelty to animals involved. I wake up
early myself, prepare a vegan feast for me and my boyfriend, then pack it into
paper bags and bring to the hosts’ house. My youngest sister is a former vegan,
now a vegetarian, so she eats both what I make and what my older sister makes
and sometimes my mom will try the vegan versions of what I had made, so I think
that’s really cool. As I mentioned before, the three holidays my family
celebrates involving a big feast are Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Fourth of
July. Below is a general meal plan of what I would make on these occasions:
Thanksgiving and Christmas:
Tofurky
Cranberry sauce: Make your own or from a can
Mashed potatoes: Mash potatoes with unsweetend almond milk and earth balance butter, salt, and pepper
Dinner rolls: We use Kroger brand frozen dinner rolls
Or make how you usually would but instead use earth balance butter and Dandies vegan marshmallows
Desserts: Chocolate Pumpkin Pie
Fourth of July:
Burgers: Use Beyond Meat burgers, vegan buns of choice, onions, lettuce, tomato, vegan mayonnaise, and daiya or chao cheese to make cheeseburger.
Corn with vegan butter
Potato Salad: Make how you usually would but without eggs and use vegan mayonnaise like Vegenaise or Just Mayo
TIP #3: BE PREPARED
TO ANSWER QUESTIONS
My last tip in having a vegan holiday with non-vegan family
members is be prepared to answer some questions that anyone may have. Because
let’s face it, if situations arise that need to be discussed or there’s
questions to be answered, a family gathering is usually the place people are
going to do it. As mentioned earlier, I had gone vegan weeks before Christmas,
so me being vegan and veganism in general was a new concept to everyone and
something no one really could understand. Be prepared to be questioned the
standard “why are you vegan” and “where do you get your B12, protein, calcium,
etc”. These questions may have gotten old by now, but it’s important to be able
to answer kindly and respectfully and in a way that doesn’t make the other
person feel attacked by your responses. Talking about veganism can be as heated
as discussing politics.
With all that in mind, I hope everyone has a wonderful
holiday and that these tips helped any vegan out there on how to celebrate with
non-vegan family. I also made a video version discussing this topic on my
YouTube channel here.
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