A joyful vegan Christmas
"Merry Christmas!" we often say to each other at this time of year, with the expectation that Christmas should be a time full of celebration, color, and love.
But how can animal lovers, vegans, and animal rights activists enjoy this time of year when the celebration of love breaks their hearts into a thousand pieces every time they are reminded of the relentless and constant animal abuse that takes place all over the world?
How can you sit and enjoy what should have been a pleasant evening surrounded by your loved ones when you are also surrounded by fruit-filled and baked body parts and whipped cow secretions, among other things?
Christmas is not kind to animals
These were the kinds of questions running through my head a year ago when I celebrated Christmas with my very non-vegan family. I was allowed to make some vegan dishes for myself and my son—which the rest of the family also enjoyed eating! But there was no shortage of food on the table.
And that was even though I tried to explain to them that there is not much difference between the duck, which was to live its short life in captivity and be slaughtered for human pleasure, and the two dogs that are my family's joy and my parents' spoiled children.
None of them understood the terrible irony of celebrating the feast of love by eating what was once a sentient and sensing individual; of celebrating the joy of being together by being responsible for children being unnecessarily torn from their mothers so that we can make rice pudding.
Christmas should be the perfect time of year to talk about veganism, as Christmas is about spreading love and veganism is about reducing suffering. Unfortunately, however, it is one of the most difficult times of year for many vegans in non-vegan families.
Vegan future makes it easier
But change is coming! Every day, more and more of us are choosing to live a life where we cause as little suffering as possible in the world. More people can imagine a better world, a world where all animals are free. A world where we make decisions based on our compassion. A world where we maintain the traditions we hold so dear, but modify them so that we consciously reduce unnecessary suffering.
This year, I'm celebrating a vegan Christmas with the part of my family who actually understands that you can easily have a completely vegan Christmas, full of traditions, games, fun, music, and, not least, fantastic food, without exploiting others.
And the only thing I want for Christmas this year is for humanity's natural empathy and love for other beings to triumph over society's dictated rhetoric that Christmas is not complete without death and exploitation.
Merry Vegan Christmas!
The blog post was written by Maya Muñoz.
