December Activism Tip: How to Get Through the Holidays When Your Family Eats Animals

Don’t Boycott!
Refusing to attend your family’s holiday gathering or boycotting the office holiday party doesn’t help animals. Many meat-eaters read your non-attendance as self-deprivation, self-righteousness, or both, and that’s the sort of club that nobody wants to join. (“You can’t even go to Christmas dinner? Who wants to live like that?”) Instead, show up with a smile on your face and a tasty vegan dish in hand (more on that below). It’s the perfect opportunity to expose others to vegetarian foods and talk about why being vegetarian is important for you and animals.

Bring Food to Share
Every family’s holiday tradition has one thing in common: lots of food. Show your family how delicious vegetarian food can be by bringing a dish or two to pass around the table. This will also help ensure that you aren’t stuck eating nothing but salad and a roll. You could even offer to do all the cooking, invite over a few friends or family members to help with preparations, and serve a vegan feast that’s sure to please everybody! Check out our favorite holiday recipes for some great ideas, including vegan versions of holiday classics such as egg nog, bread pudding, and green bean casserole.

Ask for Gifts That Help Animals
Tired of getting socks and toothpaste in your stocking? Asking for gifts that keep animals in mind is a great way to educate your loved ones and support animal rights at the same time! You could ask your friends and family to watch a PETA video, such as “Meet Your Meat,” make a donation to PETA, go vegetarian for a month, buy gifts from PETACatalog.com, or donate an old fur coat to help people in need.

Dealing With ‘The Question’
We’ve all been there. You sit down to eat, and as everyone starts digging into the rotting carcass that’s sitting in the middle of the table, someone asks: “So, why don’t you eat meat anyway?” You feel your stomach tighten and you take a deep breath, but you’re just not sure what to say. It’s not very effective to get into a long discussion about cruelty to animals during a holiday dinner, but you also don’t want to let the animals down by saying nothing or calling it a personal decision, so say something like this instead: “This is an issue that is really important to me. I believe that if you saw how animals suffer in factory farms and slaughterhouses, you would be horrified and wouldn’t want to support it. But I’ve found that having this discussion with a table full of people can be unpleasant for some, and I don’t want to monopolize the entire conversation. I do have some literature and videos, and I’d love to talk to you about this later.” This way, you’ve both raised the moral issue and come across as the nicest person at the table.

We hope that these tips will help you enjoy a happy and compassionate holiday season!

Get Active!

Have you been wishing when you go out to eat that your area had more vegetarian options? PETA’s here to help! We can help your local food joint that currently only sells veggie burgers broaden its options to dishes such as soy chicken marsala and vegan pizza and help other restaurants add a veggie burger to their barren selections. This won’t just help you have more choices—it will also give others the opportunity to make a more compassionate choice! Just e-mail us for more information.