Honest Holidays

Are you ready on all levels?

As the winter holiday season fast approaches, my thoughts for this week’s blog-post center around exploring what we each choose to prioritize. So often, we may find ourselves drifting through the season trying to keep up with all the extra gatherings and expectations, and in many micro (and macro!) ways perhaps abandoning parts of ourselves. It absolutely requires conscious attention and radical honesty to stay true to ourselves during this time of the year. I will offer some tips at the end of this post.

Let’s begin with FOOD. If we don’t make conscious decisions well BEFORE entering a holiday gathering, we are very likely to ‘fall off the wagon’ of whatever healthy eating program we normally adhere to. Small conscious transgressions, for an otherwise disciplined and healthy person, are usually no big deal and perhaps even emotionally healthy, at times. But big or oft-repeated slides cause damage - physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Why then would we allow this?

I believe the root cause is a chink in our self-love, likely originating somewhere in childhood. That chink erodes the quality of self-worth and self-confidence which is necessary to make the healthiest personal choices, to truly have our own back, and to therefore choose the foods we love that can honestly love us back - even when other hyper-palatable temptations abound. We may also feel exhausted in our life, and feel justified in ‘rewarding’ ourselves with some normally off-limits treats, as if to appease our perceived victimhood (a victim of life’s stressors).

Then there are the social and emotional layers. In order to stay true to ourselves, we must cultivate the confidence to stand apart from the crowd. We might get noticed for behaving differently, we may get questioned or even criticized or pressured to conform, and we must be able to tolerate this spotlight and cajoling. Some may be genuinely curious and interested to know more about our divergent path, yet we may not feel like taking on that teacher-role while simply wanting to enjoy a party with everyone else. We may have to bring some or all of our own food, or make special requests of the chefs. Again, we will need the internal muscles to stick our neck out and advocate for ourself.

As vegans, we may struggle emotionally with the animals being served at the gatherings. In some cases, we may even decide not to join a gathering, and then we may feel some push-back from the hosts and others. And if all these stressors aren’t enough, this year’s season in particular is a juicy environment for the topic of politics to arise, and in the likely event that not all are on the same page, and given how ill-prepared our society is to engage in respectful, honest dialogue from multiple sides of an issue, it can quickly become emotionally heated and ugly. Not a great climate for digesting a large celebratory meal!

Another challenge for many of us is witnessing the over-consumption that ramps up in into hyper-drive this time of the year. We are bombarded with pressures to buy things of all kinds - fancy food and drink, decorations, gifts, etc. Do you join in the frenzy? Do you go all-in, stay just on the fringe, or reject the whole ordeal altogether? Do you consciously decide to do the holidays radically differently, only to feel frustrated as you get sucked yet again into the overwhelming energy all around you?

What do you do to consciously prepare yourself for honest holidays - a holiday season that can truly uplift you and inspire your natural radiance to shine through - before, during, and afterwards? There is still time to find your clarity this year. I will share some of my strategies, and perhaps it will spark some ideas of your own.

This year, I chose to fly to Michigan and visit my family BEFORE the Thanksgiving holiday (I’ll be back home in Florida by the time you receive this post). I wanted to avoid the crowded airports, and be able to have relaxed connections with my family before they feel the stress of multiple extra commitments on their plates. I will be back in Florida in time to share a Thanksgiving meal with a group of raw vegans, in Florida outdoor pool-side style.

In past years, when I lived in Michigan, I always brought my own food, with enough to share (because mine always looked so enticing to the other people). I would ripen persimmons ahead of time, because they are my favorite gorgeous sweet-fruit that has a fall harvest season (fresh figs are another). Sometimes I would prepare an extra special dish such as a gorgeous raw pie, a platter of raw date-cookies, a colorful juice or soup, fresh fig pudding, fancy appetizers with a dip, or some beautifully decorated raw zucchini or cucumber pasta.

But more often than not, I would simply bring my usual salad, dressed up with some wonderful seasonal fruits and a nice home-made raw dressing. I’d bring a platter of sliced fruits to share, arranged artfully to showcase the incredible beauty of colorful, textural fruit and nature’s creative designs. In this way, I fed my body what it truly wanted, and I inspired others with the possibilities of simple fresh fruit, often with varieties they had never tried. My family still gorged on all the usual holiday fare, but they looked forward to sampling my contributions. I would also try to attend a vegan or raw-vegan holiday gathering on another day, for balance.

As for the potentially emotional and/or divisive content that may arise in dinner-table conversation, I only experience difficulty with people who demonstrate an inability to engage respectfully in rational discourse about new facts, or opposing points of view. I am still practicing a strategy for such cases, of simply stating: “I (strongly) disagree.” And then letting it go. That way I have not abandoned myself by having no voice, yet I can avoid the pointless and draining dynamics of trying to reason with a person who is temporarily irrational, disrespectful, or overly emotional. Like I said, I am still practicing, but I want to impress upon you that preparing yourself ahead of time with some conscious strategies and intentions will really help you to show up with personal strength and poise. You have an opportunity to model this for others, and when you do you will be making a valuable contribution to world peace - because it begins with inner peace. And this is something to get inspired about :).

Buying lots of gifts is another area I have become much more thoughtful about. My daughter makes nearly all of her gifts. She is a talented craftswoman, and loves to play around with making things for people all year, saving them up for the holidays. Some years I have done this too, a couple of months in advance. Another approach can be to agree with family and friends that you all wish to forego the gift-buying frenzy and expense, and plan a special activity together instead. One year I took my kids on a wild reef-snorkeling adventure in the Florida Keys, followed by a fancy sunset dinner at an ocean-side restaurant. We had a great time, and I don’t think we missed all the present-opening. I decorate (if at all) with a few twinkly string-lights. I haven’t had a Christmas tree since the kids left home, and I don’t miss it one bit. I’m not a Scrooge, I just prefer to keep my energy intact and present for other things.

Perhaps you love all the holiday shopping sprees, putting on some music and dressing up your home inside and out, and spending extra hours in the kitchen making fancy foods. You love this time of the year! But for those of you who feel an unpleasant stress in the holiday season, I invite you to get out your journal and sit deeply with yourself about what you REALLY desire for yourself in this holiday season. What would you like to do differently this year. Get specific about steps you will take to consciously prepare to greet the season wholeheartedly, empowered with your own personal way, with your whole self intact and honored by you.