Holiday Rants?

[robert]

I always like to be pretty positive whenever I can, but the holidays always get me down a bit. I come from a farming family of rednecks Over a decade ago I went a different route and became vegan. A couple of times a year I get together with family and do the holiday dinner thing. Lots of non-vegan foods are there. I look forward to when I'm old enough to have my own family and kinda do my own vegan thing during the holidays.

 

Aside from the non-vegan stuff, the holidays were great for me. I saw a bunch of friends I hadn't seen in years, hung out with family and had a lot of great vegan food!

 

I just figured I'd start a rant section for those who had af frustrating holiday season and wanted to express themselves to people who would understand.

[MontanaVegan]

I was frustrated also. I went to my mom's for Christmas.

She is 62 years old, very overweight and very sick.

Her diet is Atkins, not much other than meat and dairy products.

Watching her eat pork chops, sausage, eggs and cheese was difficult.

 

She read part of Dr Furhmans' book and watched some his Organic Athlete talk.

She doesn't think what Dr Furhman says is true.

[pelicanAndrew]

Well i had to get over the smell of burnt flesh but my aunt did make me a special salad without egg or bacon. (i never could stand bacon on salad EVER) Everybody was pretty drunk save the designated drivers(thankfully) so that was of course obnoxious. It's one thing when i'm with friends at college but being around your family in that situation is so fucking annoying/weird.

 

Also my mom was being a nutcase yesterday(she does it every year) and blaming us for being insensitive when really none of us had any clue as to what the big deal was. Apparently we weren't helping out enough and we had to figure that out for ourselves. Remember ladies, us guys will help you if you just say "could i please have some help?".

 

Besides that everything was amazing and i had a great time. Got lots of awesome vinyl/music and my digital camera i've been longing for. Can't wait to visit my moms side of the family in michigan. I was going to go to Ann Arbor but apparently it's too "out of the way"(which was my point in going there in the first place). Grand Rapids is still cool.

 

And if anybody knows of a vegan/vegetarian restaurant that has been hiding from me please fill me in.

[robert]

I knew there would be other frustrated people. I was actually thinking about the forum today.........just thinking it has been so fun hanging out with the forum members I've met.....people who understand me and people I feel totally comfortable around when I'm eating and hanging out.

 

It's totally OK to rant here. That is what this thread is for.

 

Sorry you had a frustrating experience. I can relate and I'm sure others can too.

 

Let's have an uplifting New Year!

[pelicanAndrew]

I try and stay positive but there are always frustrating aspects of the holidays. It's when everybody comes together and sometimes clash.

 

The booze sure doesn't help although this year it caused some funny discussion about how my dad has a huge head and my uncle has a small one.

[Odidnetne]

I had to work today. It was pretty much a good day, even though there was plenty of food at the non-vegan work X-mas party. All holidays are kind of hard for me, and now that the only supportive member of my family is gone...it's kind of harder.

[Zack]

The biggest problem for me is seeing all my family chow down on pies, and turkey and all kinds of filth while they talk about all the medication they need, most of them are overweight too. I don't feel bad about telling them i'm not eating, but I do feel bad watching them cause their own demise. The worst part is nobody listens when you try to tell them....

 

Other than that, it was alright. I mostly slept all day, worked on my car, then went to families where the above happened.

 

One good thing happened though, my uncle's brother, who is like a second dad to me, stopped smoking. He is 75 so it's kind of late, but better late than never. Hope he sticks with it.

[Richard]

Duhhhrrr... I have been arguing with my mum for the last few years about christmas, because I hate it, I hate parties, I hate my familiy, and I am not even Christian, so what's the point of me being there, being miserable? And each year she makes ME feel bad because she is like 'you're letting the family down if you're not there' and 'everybody has to do things they don't want to do'. But isn't the point of a party that you enjoy it? It's an optional gathering. So anyway, this year she had reluctantly agreed that I don't have to be here, although she had cried about it several times, which obviously is a lot of pressure on me. But I stuck around for Christmas day. Today though, other family members are coming. I have no interest in seeing them whatsoever and it was my intention to drive off somewhere instead today. But last night, my blundering dad says to me 'I want you to be there with the family tomorrow, your grandmother would like to see you, and so I don't want you to just disappear like you normally do'. NOW: I never ****ing disappear at christmas, each year I reluctantly sit around for everybody else's benefit, in fact, I am there most of the day, much longer than my dad, who just goes off to his bedroom after a while and doesn't reappear. So that really bugged me because he was basically saying that he thinks I am a slacker and that in the past I've been deserting everybody on christmas, which just isn't true. It completely insults me, he doesn't even realise what I've been doing all these years. So now I have to be around this evening, to see all my family as usual. I tried talking to my mum about it earlier, and she just broke down in tears as usual. Am I ever sick of it. Everybody is so fragile since my uncle killed himself, I just feel so claustrophobic all the time, it seems like whenever I try to talk about anything, people just turn to crap and can't deal with it, so it makes me want to just not talk to people, God I hate christmas.

[nicole]

These are the very reasons that I kept myself firmly planted in PA this year instead of heading back to visit my family in MI. Being around family this time of year is just too stressful. I'll see them in the spring when it's warmer and they've all lightened up a little!

 

I can't tell you how many people I had in my yoga classes this weekend who came up after and said, "Thanks for class, I really needed that. I'm in from out of town visiting family and needed to get a way for a little bit." Yeesh. I wish I could get my family members doing yoga for about three months up until the holidays... they'd be so much nicer to be around!

[SeaSiren]

No rant just disappointed

 

I was hoping for a relaxing, slow day. And I was up at the crack of dawn. Not enough sleep, unannounced guests coming through all day. Raining and cold, house in continuous chaos. Internet was totally down at home. I had to go to work because I was alerted late xmas eve (before internet went down) that I had an entire systems failure on the “auto gift certificate” system and had to go into work to repair it and send them out.

 

I knew better then to think that I’ll ever get a real day off….*sigh*

 

(on the bright side, I still have my health and tragedy had not struck today *ducks in case of lightning*)

 

Regarding the health....I had been eating all raw except drinks for over a week. Decided to eat the vegan holiday meal (cooked). I didn't eat a lot, but felt awful after and worse as the night went on.....it was really bad. I feel like I was run over by a truck this morning. Maybe there is even more to this raw then I gave it credit for.

[chesty leroux]

I had to work, and it rained pretty hard all day. And I work outside. So i was pretty wet and miserable. It's my first christmas away from home. Most of the guests at work weren't very cool.

 

After work it got better tho, we ended up going to eat at a Japanaese Tepanyaki Restaurant and I got tofu and veggies. One of the guys in the family we sat at the table with was a vegetarian so he was asking all about fish sauce so i didnt have to. Those people completely ignored us for an hour and a half tho. lame. The food was awesome me and my friends really enjoyed it.

 

Then we went to a party and got wasted.

[Kathryn]

Part of why I dislike the holidays is that I don't have any close family around (just a stepmother I'm not close to--and who seems to get more and more religious every year, some cousins I haven't seen for years), so it's pretty much 'alone' time for me. I'm not lonely most of the time, but sometimes it hits me (especially when I keep coming accross all the corny 'family' Christmas movies on TV.) Then, this small "middle of the corn and soybean fields" town feels like it's really in the middle of nowhere!

[Odidnetne]

I love it when they have no response to one of my arguments and then they quickly change the subject.

 

I love it when I use logic on one of my supervisors at work who was giving me a hard time about it, who then just gave me the phrase "I'm living my life to the fullest"....when she (and everyone else who says that) are constantly sick, napping and overweight.

[Zack]

I love it when they have no response to one of my arguments and then they quickly change the subject.

 

I love it when I use logic on one of my supervisors at work who was giving me a hard time about it, who then just gave me the phrase "I'm living my life to the fullest"....when she (and everyone else who says that) are constantly sick, napping and overweight.

 

Sad isn't it, although I have a hard time being sympathetic to people like that, as they don't give any consideration to helping save themselves.....

[Guest]

Its the only part of the year I know I won't feel all that great during no matter what. Parts of it I like but I don't like the idea of family time being spent opening presents...I hate being the center of attension then moving that on to someone else then getting it back again...it doesn't make sense to me...also it seems far too organized to me...it takes away a bit of the meaning of family. Although I did have a good time with my GF this christmas...it made it much more entertaining

[Kathryn]

I've also heard, "I'd rather die young and happy than deprive myself like you do..." or "vegans are all skinny and sickly looking...I wouldn't want to look like that..." (as they say that directly to me when clearly I am neither skinny nor sickly looking! BTW - I'm not fat and sickly either, like most of them are!!!! )

 

I hate the whole idea that eating healthfully (I try to stick with a whole foods vegan diet...though I will indulge in some vegan 'treats' as well) is somehow a 'derprivation." But I used to kind of go along with that way of thinking. Until just a couple of years ago, I would feel somehow deprived at not being able to share in 'treats' my colleagues were having...then I finally had a talk with myself and asked myself why I should feel deprived by not having something I don't want anyway!

 

As for the sick/skinny vegans: I'm afraid that more-and-more, healthy people will look 'skinny' compared to the every-'growing' US population (waistline growth!). Since over 60% of the population is overweight, and around 1/3 are obese, those who are at a healthy weight look thin by contrast. And there is so much press out there now about anoreixic/stick-thin celebrities (who are not 'healthily thin,' ) and so many Lifetime movies about eatinig disorders, that people jump to conclusions.

 

It's funny (in warped and strange way) when fat, unfit, unhealthy people make comments about healthy thin people looking unhealthy.

[Guest]

I think it depends on where you live...the majority of vegans I know in Richmond appear to be very unhealthy...all they do is eat chips and ramen(the college vegan diet I guess) and never consider working out...plus they are some of the more outspoken vegans which makes people see them as vegans and the less outspoken vegans that are much healthier never show the general public that they are vegan...this is why I've got two huge vegan tattoos. I was very suprised when I went to Portland to see that the mass majority of vegans were healthy...just the way vegans should be. But this is the case in Richmond, Philly and New York City

[offense74]

I actually didn't have much problems at all. There wasn't alot of things I could eat but they made me some fresh salad and they had fruit. I wasn't there for the food anyway.

My dad and my cousins (I was at their place on christmas eve) didn't say anything negative at all. Most of them are aware that what I do is healthy and none of them are fat, sickly or unhealthy.

 

But as others previously has stated it's usually the most sickly and obese that say the dumbest things.

[MontanaVegan]

But as others previously has stated it's usually the most sickly and obese that say the dumbest things.

 

That is so true.

I was actually asked if I can eat tomatoes or bread "on my diet"

After that, I gave up.