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Vegetarians
Rising to the Holiday Challenge
By Melanie Wilson
Thanksgiving! Christmas! Holidays! Wonderful times of family cheer and, unfortunately, major stress for many. As hard as it may be to make it through the holidays with your in-laws, try to imagine them harping on your diet as well. Imagine that they keep making little comments about that last 10 pounds you have to lose or the fact that your kids are on a constant sugar high. Pretend for a moment that they do this all the time, shaking their heads in disgust whenever you fill your plate, murmuring to themselves, and it only gets worse during the holidays!
This is what many vegetarians face when November rolls around each year. But before we get too self-pitying, let's turn the tables around for a moment. Let's say it's the vegetarian who's constantly nagging you about what you eat, making you-should-know-better faces when you go back for seconds on pie, guilt tripping you for not trying his tofu souffl笠Just as irritating, isn't it? Judgment about one's eating habits really has no place at the holiday table. It isn't the time to convince your vegetarian daughter to eat turkey "just this once," nor is it appropriate to use the opportunity to actively convert your friends and family to meatless eating.
The holidays are a time of love and sharing, forgiveness and warmth, a time for families to focus on the wealth of shared values that hold them together. It's an opportunity to give thanks for the members who are able to come together for the season, to appreciate health and well-being, to pray for the ones who are ill, down and out or far away and perhaps alone during this special time.
As wonderful as this sounds, it is an idealistic point of view. It's what we should strive for and keep in mind, but reality will ply us with challenges that we must face. Our duty as devoted family members is to search for ways to jump the hurdles of holiday madness and misunderstanding and come out on the other side, in a new year, filled with renewed affection – or at least acceptance – for even our most difficult-to-manage relatives.