It’s Christmas time! The time for family… togetherness… love and… oh yeah: FOOD.
Food, glorious food.
Christmas with my family has always been an incredible, bountiful feast! My mother is a phenomenal cook, my aunty is a phenomenal cook, her partner makes the best damn lasagne known to man and, as the years go on, I have been getting better and better (if I do say so, myself!)
In my family we spend our gift money on what’s going in our mouths. Proudly. I’m the youngest and I’m 25, so we really don’t need to be buying everyone a present, right? We’re grown-ups! If we want something, we buy it. A few years ago the old “Secret Santa” was introduced and everyone was relieved. Enough with the lame stress of present shopping – let’s spend that money on booze!
My first year being a “vegan at Christmas” I was so terrified about affecting the traditions and making the whole day about “Hannah doesn’t eat meat anymore. Or anything bloody else! What will she eat?! What can we give the vegan?!”.
I’m the ultimate timid people pleaser and desperately didn’t want anyone to change things for me. Please, make whatever you were already going to make and I will be happy helping myself to the vegetables. Just don’t worry about me, please!
I remember going to my (nearly) sister-in-law’s house for the day, salad in hand and sitting around the giant table, where they made the Christmas Dinner buffet-style, so we all could help ourselves. I remember the conversation that made my heart melt, where the host informed me what on the buffet they had made I could eat and she said it so happily. For dessert: my Mum made one of her famous treacle sponges with custard and I bought my own container of coconut ice-cream and baked some cookies to share with everyone. I sat their happily with my “sundae” creation, while they tucked into their custard and genuinely couldn’t have been happier. I don’t care what others eat around me, as long as they don’t care what I eat.
Now – only three later, the situation could not be more different.
I think I could be the luckiest girl (and vegan!) in the world. Now: both my brother’s fiancé, my aunty and my own incredible mother have gone vegan themselves and nearly everyone else in the family is so open minded about the whole thing.
Everyone’s cooking skills translated to the vegan life and, let me tell you, when we make up big Christmas or Birthday feasts – they are phenomenal. Today when we eat together, nearly everything on the table is vegan and some meat is bought for my brother and the other meat-eaters to have along all the various vegetables, salads, potato bakes etc.
I’m pretty lucky right? But, this does raise some interesting questions….
Mum and I were driving yesterday, planning Christmas day and we started talking about how she is going to have to make things she doesn’t ethically agree with, for other people. My Mum will be doing a lot of the cooking and, she is a vegan! She is a vegan who will have to make some meat for Christmas. Ah! A brilliant “vegan dilemma”.
I do think this is an interesting one. We will cook my brother and a few others meat on Christmas day and I wonder how many vegans out there would judge us? Mum bought up the topic, checking I wouldn’t mind too much, because that’s what phenomenal mothers do and we laughed about the switch in only a few years. Today: we are checking it’s “okay” there will be people eating steak at the table and only a few years ago they were probably saying “is it okay if Hannah comes? She doesn’t eat meat..”
For me personally, I wouldn’t be able to cook meat. Ever. At all. For anyone. But I will never judge a vegan who can.
If you are married to a meat eater or have a meat eater in your family – surely the most important part of Christmas is that everyone is enjoying themselves, happy and well-fed? For my brother to enjoy his day, he will not want to eat vegan food. We are Australian… and a lot of people in Australia would say that a meal isn’t a meal without meat. To be honest: before I was vegan, I rarely ate anything that was even vegetarian.
Meat was the staple. Vegetables were a (resented) side.
Christmas is about family. I do believe that creating harmony and balance is important for a day that is meant to be about togetherness and joy. I’m sure a lot of families fight on Christmas day (if the American rom-coms are true), but I’m happy to say that in my family (and extended family) we just love each other and get along. The few times I’ve tried to serve my brother vegan food, it hasn’t gone down well at all, so why would I make him uncomfortable on a day that’s meant to be about togetherness? I won’t be that kind of vegan. He can see all the food laid out and how divine it looks – if he wants to eat steak, he is a grown up and can do as he pleases.
BUT – when a vegan is doing all the cooking does that change anything? Should a meat eater offer to cook their own meat? Should they offer to BUY it? These are the interesting conversations and “dilemmas” that pop up. I am an ethical vegan, so the idea of purchasing a rump of steak makes me feel ill and angry.
Regardless of who my loved one is: I can’t purchase meat for them. If they want it, they can buy it and cook it themselves. BUT: that’s me. My mother, who is also an ethical vegan, absolutely doesn’t want to walk into a butcher and buy steak, but she will for Christmas Day. For my brother. For her son. Of course she wants to make her son happy and comfortable on Christmas and I want that too.
This is really a personal and complicated topic, one I can’t believe I’ve only just started pondering. What will happen if I fall in love with a meat-eater? Let’s face it: statistically it’s pretty likely! Will I love him enough to be able to buy meat for him? Will he love me enough to stop eating it? Will I expect him to?
I guess I don’t know the answers to these questions yet and I won’t until I’m faced with them. Right now: the closest I have are my family members and, as much as I love them, I can’t cook them meat.
However – I absolutely have zero objection to them eating it around me (particularly on Christmas Day).
Diet is personal. Ethics are personal.
But Christmas is about everyone.
Interesting article! How lucky you are to be on the opposite side of this dilemma than most of us. I’m headed to my in-laws for Christmas dinner, and as the only vegan at the table, it never occurred to me to just be happy with a salad – I am bringing my own tuforkey and gravy, and will happily offer to share. It seems reasonable to me that if you’re eating differently than the cook – whether that’s due to allergies, health choices, or moral choices – you should bring something you can eat. So, if you’re vegan at the home/table of omnivores, you bring something vegan and offer to share. And if you’re a meat-eater at a table of vegans, you bring your own ham or whatever. 🙂
I am an ethical vegan. I will be cooking Christmas dinner this year. My older son is a meat eater (growing up, he never really liked meat, now he does), my younger son is an ethical vegan like me. I will not buy meat, I will not cook meat, I do not want dead animals in my house. I will not cook meat for anybody. I will not anything from an animal and I do not want anybody bringing anything into my house. Friends and family know how I feel about it and they accept it. I cook them delicious food. It is vegan, but it is still food. My older son will act like everything tastes weird, but he will have to live with that. My boyfriend is a meat eater, but eats hardly any meat at all, he loves whatever I cook him. His Christmas gift is a vegan cooking class.
My 90 yr old father is moving in with us and I am faced with the same issue. I plan on buying pre-made meat dishes for him and adding to them with our food. I’m sure I will hear many times how my sister is a better cook since I won’t make him fried chicken or steak. Happy holidays to you and your family!
Hannah, I totally understand the question. We are vegan and cook Thanksgiving and Christmas for our extended family. I cook them a turkey and ham. I have wondered how blended families pull this off.
I am not here to judge people, however I do encourage folks to make educated decisions. However, if some one wants ham with dinner and it’s the holiday — as the Mom, I fixing it. It is a tricky spot to be in. My husband and I will be having a Field Roast Stuffed Roast. Merry Christmas!
this is a dilemma indeed. luckily i found a guy who loved me enough to become vegetarian. he doesn’t “get it” but at least he is happy to eat what i cook.. we have a little conflict with his sons. They are not vegetarian. they visit for the holidays and i wont cook meat, or buy it. SO, they offer to buy and cook on the grill outside but it still makes me uncomfortable. we have only been married 8 mo, so, we are working all this out
How lucky u are Hannah! I have been vegan for years. I never really ate meat and for health, moral & ethical reasons I stopped completely and never looked back. I have a meat loving husband that I no longer cook meat for because it makes me ill and feel like a hypocrite. Just yesterday my a-hole father in law ordered a bison burger and stared at me waiting for a reaction. He didn’t get one. I don’t care what people around me are eating as long as they keep their snarky comments to them selves. My daughters have cut meat out of their diets by choice as well. They have been supportive of me since day one. God bless u & ur family 🙂
Hey, Hannah!
I agree that this is a very interesting topic to discuss, but at the end when you say that diet is a personal decision, here I don’t agree with you – does one have a right to decide if they’re going to take someone else’s (cow’s, chicken’s, pig’s) life just to be able to enjoy Christmas? I think that’s pretty selfish and unchristmasy, but I know people don’t get it. Unfortunatelly. They’re focused on their pleasure and their happy christmas. What does Happy Christmas for e v e r y o n e mean? For everyone? Who’s everyone? Well, for people it’s people. Not animals. But I think ‘everyone’ should include animals aswell.
Happy holidays to you and everyone else!
Hello Hannah! I was vegetarian for four years and vegan since May this year. Ethical primarily and it’s lowered my cholesterol 5.9 to 5.1 and dropping. Live telling meat eaters with a myriad of health issues that statistic. Cousin has high blood pressure and husband constant stomach complaints neither will give up carcasses.
This holiday is tricky staying with in-laws in a remote beach town and every meal revolves around meat. Husband gets embarrassed to tell folks so I have to mention it. He says I’m being difficult and making people cater for me. So saddening he doesn’t get this.
On the plus side I’m going to return from holidays skinnier than when I left! Christmas Dinner was hilarious I ate salad, nuts and roast potatoes (probably cooked in meat fat trying not to think about that slip up). They ate three kinds if meat so excessive. Very one has food poisoning today except me so clearly something wasn’t prepared correctly.
Wish me luck following your blog! Hoping to open an eatery soon for veggies and vegans.
Well done, well done.
I much agree with the author. I no longer buy or cook meat for anyone. Its painful to me that my husband, after being educated on the cruelties related to eating meat, still makes an informed choice to eat meat but that doesn’t make him a bad person. Or does it? I guess his other qualities outweigh this sticking point. For this Christmas we are having guests for dinner. He wanted to serve meat so I told him the entire dinner is up to him to cook. I cooked a turkey and the entire Thanksgiving meal which was a deciding point to never cook meat for ANYONE again and I feel its his turn to “do the deed”. I do feel hurt and disrespected that in my own home, he insists of serving meat. In the future, knowing what I do today, I would never date a meat eater. A huge amount of compromising my ethics is involved here but admittedly, I am not as cavalier as some are as to having meat products in their home.