Why New Year’s Day is the BEST Vegan Holiday of them All!
What??? Why is New Year’s Day such a great Vegan Holiday? What about…Vegansgiving? Also known as ThanksVegan? What about Earth day? Or National Vegan Day? (Arbor Day?) Christmas isn’t even in the running?
Those are all great Holidays, so for fun, let’s knock them out as top contenders one by one.
Thanksgiving is only great for vegans when they have an extended Plant Eating Peer group to share it with and love to cook. No judgemental relatives around to judge or question your protein or mock your non-turkey ways. (Or sneak meat to your children when you aren’t looking!) Let’s add Christmas to this list for the same reasonings.
Earth Day, Vegan Day, and even Arbor Day are awesome choices, but don’t really have enough traction to make the BEST of the Holiday list. I can’t recall really celebrating any of those as an actual holiday, and certainly doubt any of my meat-eating friends even have a clue when they are. (Pop Quiz, without google or siri or whatever other technical assistance, do you know when they are?)
So allow me to explain why New Year’s Day is the best of the Days for Plant Eaters! (Foreshadowing- it actually helps to be a Southern Vegan in this one and only one instance.)
Every Year since we got engaged, my husband and I have had a huge New Year’s Day gathering at our house. (No, not New Year’s Eve, let someone else clean up after hosting that party!) We like to think of ourselves as the rescue crew to nurse everyone back to reality after a big night, and welcome them warmly and safely into the new year. With comfort food. And a come as you are dress code, jammies allowed. It is a drop in, so people come when they are able to leave the safety of their homes on this bright new day, and are not rushed out the door or forced to stay until the end.
Now, in those early years, the drop-in had our first guests struggling through the door at around 4pm, barely alive. We fed and nurtured them next to the fire with loving care. These days, we’re all adults with kids, but we have maintained the low pressure, easy arrival, enter the comfort zone atmosphere. There are just kids running around doing their best to remind us we aren’t in our twenties anymore. (We can now send them out back to the playground, yay, suburbs!)
OK, OK, that sounds great, but WHY IS IT SO GREAT FOR VEGANS??? Ha Ha Ha, let me tell ya. For 17 years, we have fed our friends and family to the gills with delicious and filling New Year’s Day foods. Never once has a single person commented, questioned, or even noticed that the meal is 100% vegan. Why? Because here in the South, EVERYONE eats black-eyed peas for Luck, collard greens for Money, and cornbread, well, we just like it so I guess for comfort. Everyone loves our recipes and always tell us it’s the best they’ve ever had.
We do not tell them that the reason ours is so delicious (other than the fact that we are pretty amazing cooks, jussayin!) is because we don’t boil the collards down for eight hours with ham hocks and bones. Or that the cornbread doesn’t have cow’s butter, milk, eggs, or lard. And that the black eyed peas aren’t full of bacon and or ham. And they simply don’t notice. Seriously, not in the 17 years of hosting Southern New Year’s. They leave our house full, satisfied, heartburn and heart disease free.
Imagine hosting a total Veganstravaganza to everyone you know and receiving zero complaints or concerns! No conversations surrounding your weirdo dietary ways. They LOVE the food and WANT the recipes. They EAT. IT. UP.
Yes. That’s it. That’s the magic. Total Vegan Nirvana. And this, my fellow Plant Based enthusiasts, is what makes New Year’s Day the BEST Vegan Holiday of the Year! Happy New Year to you all!
If you love this post and want to share, please let your friends know about it! Sharing is caring, and the more people in the know, the more awesome your plant based support network grows! Aloha!
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