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Holidays, Happiness, and Being Vegan by Victoria Moran

With December upon us, I’m in holiday mode. We did an all-out Thanksgiving, starting with my son-in-law, Nick, appearing in the Macy’s parade (he was a toy soldier), and having over for dinner a gentleman named Stan who is, well, let’s just say, closely acquainted with the Big Guy from the North Pole. We watchedMiracle on 34th Street (the 1947 black-and-white original, of course) and when Kris Kringle said, “Christmas isn’t just a day: it’s a state of mind,” Stan and I both responded with “Yes!” in a duet so synchronized you’d have thought it was rehearsed.

vegan holidays main street vegan

At this time of year, I automatically access a childlike sense of wonder. It’s interesting to me because I didn’t have a Norman Rockwell childhood, but Christmas was somehow exempt from the various dramas that went on the rest of the time. I’m so grateful for that, and I believe it’s why I can slip so easily into effortless happiness with the first Christmas tree stand that goes up on Broadway. Being vegan means that some of the seasonal foods I eat are different from those of Christmases long ago, but that’s just part of the celebration. These days, when I put up my manger scene and unwrap the cow and the sheep and the little goats after their year in tissue paper, I think of the farmed animal sanctuaries I’ve visited and support, and how positive it is that at least a few animals have been rescued and more can be spared. It will only take more chipping away of old ideas, old prejudices, and old fears.

My commitment for Holiday Season 2014 is to give it a priority. You never know how many Christmases a life is going to have and I don’t want to miss anything, even when I can’t see the bottom of the email in-box keeping on top of all that seems immensely important. Here’s my plan: William and I will start the month with a 3-day juice cleanse. That’s not much for veteran juicers but it’s a little gift to the digestive system, none the less.

On the 8th, a smart and funny friend, Cathryn Michon, will be in town with her new feature film, Muffin Top: A Love Story, about one woman’s relationship with her midsection. It’s not a Christmas thing like tinsel and candy canes, but it’s very Christmas-y to me to celebrate splendors, and knowing that someone in my world has written, starred in, and raised the money for a feature film is incredibly inspiring. It helps me remember that all things are possible and makes me grateful that Christmas comes just before New Year’s visioning and goal-setting and stretching for more and better.

On the 15th, I’ll be bursting with pride as I attend the holiday fundraising dinner for Urban Utopia Wildlife, the center my daughter and two of her wildlife-rehabber colleagues have established to tend to sick and injured wild mammals. My little girl, who always excelled at theater and writing and creative pursuits, has grown into a woman keeping track of 501(c)3 organizational stuff, as well as getting up in the night to feed to the last of the fall’s orphaned baby squirrels. Adair is the only vegan in this fledgling organization and she’s convinced the other decision-makers to keep this, their second fundraiser, vegan, as was their party last summer. It’s such a curious thing: we vegans are a minority. We can push our agenda on the people around us, but if the food is great and the conversation stimulating, it’s not pushing an agenda anymore, it’s broadening a horizon.

And this year more than any season before, I want to have people over. New York City is funny that way. In Manhattan at least, few people have really big places for grand entertaining, and the rest of us tend to socialize at restaurants. But I’m going to have parties because it’s Christmas and I’ll have decked the halls (well, the living room) and it is my vegan duty to share with others that animal-free feasting and fêting can be delicious and elegant.

Finally, I intend to hold onto this Christmas state of mind through December, at least, and maybe longer. It’s hard to stay in wonder and possibility when you know how the animals suffer. It’s hard to hold onto hope when you’ve watched Cowspiracy or read Comfortably Unaware to be upbeat and enthusiastic when someone you love is sick with a condition that eating plants could turn around, and they’re not interested. But if it were easy to live that wonderful, childlike sense that life is somehow magical despite everything, we’d have it all the time and we’d be saints with halos. I don’t know any saints, but I know some amazing, committed, powerful people, and some of them are reading this post.

My advice to myself, and to you if you’d like it is: enjoy this festive season. Give yourself a present. Fill yourself up (and not only on Silk Nog and vegan fudge). Then take the energy you got from all that  love and laughter and celebration out into the world and make it better. Heck, you might even make some part of it downright merry.

victoria moran and forbes main street veganVictoria Moran is the author of twelve books, including Creating a Charmed Life, Shelter for the Spirit, and Main Street Vegan. Her next book, The Good Karma Diet: Eat Gently,Feel Amazing, Age in Slow Motion, will be published in May and is available now for pre-order on BN.com and Amazon.com. She is the founder and director of MainStreet Vegan Academy, the cover model for the current issue of La Fashionista Compassionista (subscribe to this online fashion mag for free at www.lafcnyc.com), and the brand ambassador for vegan dress designer, LoisEastlund.com. Please follow Victoria on Twitter @Victoria_Moran,on Instagram @MainStreetVegan, and like her Facebook page, Main Street Vegan.

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