Merry Christmas from Leafy Souls! As you know, we love to help make enjoying a vegan lifestyle simple, but Christmas is a tricky time for vegans. So this year we've spoken to our in-house Social Media expert (and long-time vegan) to gather her thoughts on how to make this a beautiful, cruelty-free Christmas to remember. Over to you Angelik!
The idea of a vegan Christmas feast or celebration may be challenging to some, yet it's actually quite easy!
A few creative tweaks is all it takes to enjoy a vegan Christmas. And what makes it even more exciting is that moment we can inspire our omnivore friends to join us and have fun being vegan. After all, more people must realize how a more sustainable vegan and kinder lifestyle adds more joy to our life.
Here, I share some of my simple hacks in celebrating Christmas:
1) Save Time by Making Food Easy and Simple
Food can get complicated, but keeping it basic works well for busy moms and working peeps. It's as simple as making a list of all the favorite foods that the family members will love and searching for recipes to veganize it.
Vegan mock meats are a shortcut in inspiring non-vegans to enjoy their meals. Examples are “tofurkey”, vegan pork chops and bacon ham that is available in most health stores. It’s easy to get leads of vegan sources by joining some vegan community groups on social media. Vegan gourmet cheese is also available in the vegan market. Choosing to buy vegan items saves us time, but for those DIY vegans it's easy to research the recipes and cook it. Research good recipes in baking Christmas cakes, gingerbread man cookies and gourmet cheeses. Don't forget to replace animal ingredients in some recipes to plant-based, including butter or dairy for cakes.
Some useful videos and resources for vegan recipes:
- Have some vegan baking inspiration delivered to your home by Mix & Rise, UK-based vegan chefs who are on a mission to transform baking. (Ps. We featured these baking pioneers in our December issue of the Prime magazine. Find out more about Prime Membership here.)
- Here is a quick and easy vegan Christmas fruit cake video by Sally at https://youtu.be/FHB2mcSq3K8
- Vegan parmesan cheese for our pasta: https://leafysouls.com/blogs/vegan-blog/how-to-make-vegan-parmesan
- Best vegan food products 2020: https://leafysouls.com/blogs/vegan-blog/best-vegan-products-vegan-foods-that-you-cant-resist
Our Top 11 Favorite YouTube vegan cooking shows:
2) Make Your Christmas Shopping Easy by Choosing to Shop in Vegan Stores
Us vegans sometimes spend long hours shopping because we want to ensure that the materials used are cruelty-free. But supporting all-vegan brands is a valuable shortcut here, not just for you but for veganism. Not only do vegan stores like ours do the scanning for you, but supporting them is key to building a strong vegan economy. Consumer demand and successful vegan brands create real change in the industries they compete in, whilst vegan gift giving can also inspire our non vegan love ones to realize how fun it is to live with compassion for all.
We at Leafy Souls wants to make your shopping convenient and easy while we inspire people to go vegan.
Here’s a good list of Christmas gift ideas:
3) Set the Christmas Vibe Mood at Home
After setting up a Christmas tree, some Christmas decorations are the next step. We prefer our decorations to be eco friendly and plastic-free, A pine tree or a live plant in a pot is best for our Christmas tree, but some natural, reusable Christmas tree options are made of wood and rattan. There's usually plenty of second-hand decorations around too, so you don't have to buy new ones. Christmas time contributes to more animal slaughter, pollution and so much wastage, so be environmental by choosing recycled materials for Christmas decorations if you have to buy new.
Some eco friendly ideas for gift bags and wrappers:
4) Make Christmas Fun and Comfortable for Our Loved Ones
The real conscious present we can offer our loved ones is not material, but our warm loving presence. It's important to keep the warmth and love in this once-a-year occasion where we can bond with our busy relatives. Yet this can also be a time to expect divisive reactions from our family members about our vegan life.
It's more of an advantage for us vegans to be hosting the events by inspiring our loved ones to live a conscious life. It's a time to let them explore how good our vegan food and choices are too. But if it's hosted by an omnivore then it's important to bring our vegan foods to share and inspire them.
A heart to heart talk with our loved ones is vital and can be a way to help them live a healthier and productive life.
But…What About The Kids?
Now to the hard part! Kids adore Christmas and they are bombarded with advertising about the latest toys to ask for. It can get tricky to keep the focus away from “things.” Our guardian role is to teach them the truth behind every advertisement they can watch. We are the role model for our children rather than all these TV and social media commercials they can watch. Educate children about the real value of a present and why a gift is best to be progressive to their growth.
Any compassionate human being, especially kids, have the capacity to understand and appreciate the idea of being kinder to animals, gentler on our planet, and creating a more sustainable world.
We at Leafy Souls wish you all a merry soulful Christmas and a Blissful New Year!
Thanks to Angelik Velayo for this blog. If you want to share your thoughts on a vegan Christmas, or just ask a question, head over to our Instagram @leafysouls to say hello. Thanks!