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Avoiding your family THANKSGIVING


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Since this will be my first Thanksgiving as a vegan I am avoiding going and sorrounding myself around people chomping on a poor turkey. My co-worker is givng me sh** because he says I am being anti-social for not wanting to go and be there with family. I told him it is not that I don't want to be around family but I don't want to be there watching people celebrate a holiday in which a bird is killed as a fun and festive occasion. If turkey was not a part of the holiday and it was vegan food I would be there in a heart beat. I think Thanksgiving is just a terrible holiday and this year I don't want any part of the party who enjoy suffering. I prefer to hang out with fellow vegans who relate.

 

Some people say you could show up after the meal but in my family Thanksgiving is the meal.

 

Anyone else see my point?

I don't avoid all family events just this one because dead turkey is the center of attention.

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I see your point. If its offensive for you to see people eating a turkey then I wouldn't go either. I'll give you moral support online. I went to a Thanksgiving get together last Friday at a friends house with his housemates. They cooked two Tofurkys. It was Da Bomb! Tofurky tastes way better than turkey.

 

What business is it of this co-worker as far as who you spend your time with and who is he to criticize you? I don't want to jump down the throat of someone I don't know but he sounds like an asshole. I think his comments crossed professional boundaries into your personal life.

 

I'll be at home alone watching both NFL football games on Thursday and enjoying every minute of it.

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What business is it of this co-worker as far as who you spend your time with and who is he to criticize you?

 

Totally. .

I can see if you asked his opinion, but to criticize would annoy me.

 

 

I'll be at home alone watching both NFL football games on Thursday and enjoying every minute of it.

 

Football? Hmmm. I want something to watch on Thursday...nothing involving sports,though.

 

Any recommendations, Anyone? I'm a movie freak, but I want something to take me away from the horror of "Thanksgiving."

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I tell people that I have been to an animal sanctuary ( Poplar Springs ) and have gotten to be around turkeys. Going to a Thanksgiving dinner after that would be like one of them sitting at a dinner table with a cooked cat or a cooked dog on it.

 

FWIW, It is useful to remind people that Thanksgiving is not about the turkey. Some of the first settlers/invaders/Europeans in American were religious pilgrims. They were inadequately adapted to the harsh winter which they found themselves in. They were starving and freezing. Some local native Americans brought them native foods out of compassion for them. Turkey was only one of those foods. Thanksgiving is about being thankful for what you have and if it is about anything else it is about compassion, which can be extended to animals.

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Before wisdom has it right on the farm sanctuary issue, turkeys are so cool, and real chill.

Basically man sometimes you just gotta grab your balls and tell people that you love em but you dont want to see them knosh on a friend of yours, you dig?

Or make something up that you gotta do, that always works.

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FWIW, It is useful to remind people that Thanksgiving is not about the turkey. Some of the first settlers/invaders/Europeans in American were religious pilgrims. They were inadequately adapted to the harsh winter which they found themselves in. They were starving and freezing. Some local native Americans brought them native foods out of compassion for them. Turkey was only one of those foods. Thanksgiving is about being thankful for what you have and if it is about anything else it is about compassion, which can be extended to animals.
Cooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving Massacre

Is All That Turkey and Stuffing a Celebration of Genocide?

http://indy.pabn.org/archives/213thank.shtml

 

Get accurate facts beforewisdom and stop revising history.

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I never denied that the early Europeans attacked the Native Americans. However, the native Americans did take pity on the pilgrims and feed them and that is the basis of the holiday.
Thats a LIE!

 

November 23, 2005

 

ORIGINS OF THANKSGIVING The year was 1637.....700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe, gathered for their "Annual Green Corn Dance" in the area that is now known as Groton, Conn.

 

While they were gathered in this place of meeting, they were surrounded and attacked by mercernaries of the English and Dutch. The Indians were ordered from the building and as they came forth, they were shot down. The rest were burned alive in the building.

 

The next day, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared : "A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children.

 

For the next 100 years, every "Thanksgiving Day" ordained by a Governor or President was to honor that victory, thanking God that the battle had been won.

 

Newell based his research on studies of Holland Documents and the 13 volume Colonial Documentary History, both thick sets of letters and reports from colonial officials to their superiors and the king in England, and the private papers of Sir William Johnson, British Indian agent for the New York colony for 30 years in the mid-1600s.

 

"My research is authentic because it is documentary," Newell said. "You can't get anything more accurate than that because it is first hand. It is not hearsay."

 

Newell said the next 100 Thanksgivings commemorated the killing of the Indians at what is now Groton, Connecticut [home of a nuclear submarine base] rather than a celebration with them. He said the image of Indians and Pilgrims sitting around a large table to celebrate Thanksgiving Day was "fictitious" although Indians did share food with the first settlers.

 

Source: Documents of Holland, 13 Volume Colonial Documentary. History, letters and reports from colonial officials to their superiors and the King in England and the private papers of Sir William Johnson, Britsh Indian agent for the New York colony for 30 years.

 

Researched by William B. Newell (Penobscot Tribe) Former Chairman of the University of Connecticut Anthropology Department.

http://www.aimovement.org/moipr/thanksgiv.html

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Richard;

 

I think the way bodybag worded his viewpoint is unnecessarily inflammatory. However, such things were done by the Europeans who colonized America and the earlier Americans. You might not find it as interesting as I did being British, but years ago an Ivy League Professor Dr. Howard Zinn wrote an excellent book called "The People's History Of The United States" documenting many of the less flattering aspects of American history. Dr. Zinn enjoys a great reputation as a historian. After the end of every president's term Dr. Zinn updates his book with a new chapter about the last president. You might want to wait a few months and do some bicep curls so you can lift the edition revised for the latest President Bush.

 

Cheers

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Didn't lincoln start it the holiday up and spread the happy story to people to confort them in the civil war...? that is what I heard how Thanksgiving came around or at least the holiday as we know it.

 

What I call falsifying history.

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I see you not showing up as a: lose lose situation.

These are just my thoughts:

"he didn't come because he's a vegan"

Now you've given vegan a bad name. What will they think.? He is unsociable/ wierd.

Probably not going to give anyone there a good perception of veganism, if any at all.

Then the animals lose. Because you're not there standing up for them. You have a chance to be their voice, but you choose to make them mute.

This is a perfect opportunity to bring light to the world to express your view points, Or should I go so far as to say OUR VIEW POINTS. It's like a military mission, a sales pitch, a politicians platform.

With tact, with caring, with kindness, you can make a difference in the world. You can bring forth ideas that can sprout and grow, that can possibly reach farther then your own circle. I see it as you chickening out to a challenge, A challenge to create understanding without resentment. It's not an easy sell, but it's an opportunity for win, win. Your opportunity to further the movement is being held back by what? Your fear of engagement, fear of losing the battle, the sale? Or is a dead bird your only excuse?

Get out there and fight the fight, with sutlety of course, but none the less the fight.

 

http://www.umtsd.org/Sports/ANIMATED_cheerleaders_2.gif

Edited by Vegan Joe
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I agree w/ Vegan Joe..... why don't you cook/buy some delicious Vegan Thanksgiving dishes and bring them with you? That way you are spreading the love! The issue is then brought out into the open in a really positive way.

 

If your family starts to think that your vegan lifestyle is taking you away from them.... they likely will never understand (or be willing to try and understand) your point of view. They'll only see it as a negative thing.

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In our family and friends, we call it Genocide Awareness Day just as much as we call it Thanksgiving. We always are thankful for family, friends, and all our blessings, and sometimes one of us retells the true story of the first harvest festival meal the puritans and tribal people shared, and then of what the puritans did to them after.

 

When we do go to my mom's for thanksgiving, we just make vegan versions of whatever we're looking forward to eating that year. They eat dead animals all the time, I don't wanna give up my holidays with them just because they do. Some day they'll be gone...

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No, people have misunderestimated me. I wasn't saying that what bodybag was saying was farcical - I was saying that Thanksgiving is farcical. I agree entirely with what he said, it's a ridiculous festival from what I understand about it, unless everything I've read on the subject is a lie, I've never read anything good about the history of the event.

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No, people have misunderestimated me. I wasn't saying that what bodybag was saying was farcical - I was saying that Thanksgiving is farcical. I agree entirely with what he said, it's a ridiculous festival from what I understand about it, unless everything I've read on the subject is a lie, I've never read anything good about the history of the event.
Richard, I misunderstood your post. I'll edit or delete my post. I apologize.
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We don't have thanksgiving here in Finland (yeah, I know you knew it), but we have Christmas eve and a big ham as the main dish. But this year I talked with my father, who agreed with me, that we don't really need that ham to celebrate Christmas and he made a promise to me not to have one. Last year he would have done the same, but he received a ham from his work so...

 

I'm sure that this would've never happened, if I hadn't for these four years offered to prepare vegan dishes at christmas and that way showed that you can still eat your heart out as a vegan.

 

And after christmas my father, his fiancée and my little sister are going to be (strick! ) vegetarians for a whole month as a present for me. Maybe I should challenge my father to go to see a doctor before and after being a vegetarian so that he could see how it would be beneficial for him to be a vegan for life.

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I'm in London now, so thanksgiving is not a huge deal, obvs. But I have dinner with my brothers. Tomorrow 3 of my (British) cousins are coming as well.

 

Around the holidays, I often hear vegans talking about whether to go to family gatherings or not, because of the meat that will be there. To be honest, I don't quite understand the impulse to boycott. Why boycott family holiday meals in particular? If one boycotts those because meat is there, does that mean that one boycotts all meals and gatherings at which non-vegan food is served? No meals out with non-vegan friends or parties at which non-vegan food is served? Eating is done only with fellow vegans (or people who are eating vegan on that occasion)?

 

I can understand boycotting if the family meal is always contentious, like if family members give you a hard time for being vegan or refuse to accommodate you. But that's different from boycotting just because there will be meat there.

 

Fortunately, when my partner and I take part in such family meals, all the side dishes are made vegan so that we can eat them all. So the turkey is there, but everything else is vegan. If we didn't go, they wouldn't bother making all those side dishes and desserts vegan, so by going, we are reducing the amount of animal products used in the meal.

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