Christmas Dinner issue...

[katycb]

So I'm hosting Xmas for us (family of 5 all kids under 7) and my parents/ in laws this year. I have invited my sister who is a strict vegan so was obviously going to make sure she had a decent vegan option. I understand that she doesn't like seeing meat as a centre piece so I offered to plate up separately so this wasn't an issue to which she said she would still feel uncomfortable, I then offered to cook a veggie meal to avoid this so she would have lots of choice and even if some stuff has dairy in it she shouldn't be distressed looking at it .. Apparently this isn't enough and she will only come if everything is Vegan... A part of me thinks that I want to compromise so that all my family can be there the other part thinks that I have already been really fair and there are 9 others to think about...she had then offered to come but not for the meal and I really don't know what to do. So aibu to just cook what we would normally have with a vegan option and plate up separately and say that's the compromise or should I cook a vegan meal for 10..

I can understand revulsion at the thought of eating the flesh of a dead animal

So can I, but it seems a stretch to claim to hate even the sight of meat; I get they won't actually enjoy it, but what's with "I can't stand it near me"?

What do these folk do when they're out shopping or eating, for instance? Do they run screaming from Sainsburys, tremble in Tescos or gag in Greggs, or just get on with it when there's not the benefit of an audience?

She must struggle to function in day to day society and her workplace if she can't even be around people who eat a non vegan diet. You sound very accommodating. My cousin is vegan and she insists on bringing her own food to big gatherings so that the host doesn't feel put out and she doesn't inconvenience them... they sound at the absolute extremes of the scale!!

I think it is ok that she has suggested she does not come for the eal - she can still spend the rest of the day with you.

I would suggest she brings her own plated up food then you can all eat together as a compromise but say, "but, I totall understand if you want to just join us after our meal".

And if she happens to eat Cadbury or Mars Chocolate, remind her most of it has palm oil in it so it's not vegan, really, if orangutans are dying to produce the palm crop...

‘The future is vegan
Embrace it people’

Probably.
But not for festive fare...just yet.

Look if you don’t like vegans at dinner, just leave it on the side of your plate.

What is Christmas without a family ruck ? So I’m tuning into the idea that your sister may be looking for a ‘hall pass’ for the festive family scoff.

We went away for a 3-day Christmas lock-in at a coastal gastro hotel - the first Christmas after mum died & I just could not summon the festive spirit without her - & it turned out to be a blast. Loads of great food shopped, cooked, served & washed up someone else, wines by the glass for every course, everything plush, shiny & decked to the rafters, AND no family feuds festering ready to burst open. Tearfully expensive but worth every penny.

I’m vegan and would of been grateful for the vegan option, with enough for everyone else to try if they wanted it.

Bollocks to that. I’ve been vegan for over 30 years (not a bandwagon vegan) and I cook meat regularly. She is being totally unreasonable.

Of course people like this exist! Just because you've never met one, doesn't mean they're not real. I've never met a CF like you read about on here, or a MIL who controls the family, but I certainly do believe they exist.

But I have met a vegan like this. She was a friend of mine, and became a complete hypocrite about her veganism.

I haven't eaten meat for 45 years, although I have no problem cooking it for others, but I wouldn't dream of making all the guests have a vegan meal, simply because one (probably newly converted) vegan demanded it, and especially not for Christmas Dinner. That's like heresy! People look forward to having a lovely Christmas dinner, complete with turkey, or other joint of meat, pigs in blankets, the works.

I can just imagine the disappointment of the other guests, if they'd been presented a vegan meal on Christmas Day.

Your sister is being extremely unreasonable and a proper brat. No way would I spoil Xmas dinner for everyone by making it vegan! I wouldn’t even do a veggie one for everyone. I’d be gutted if I went to someone’s house for Xmas dinner and they served up a veggie/vegan meal for us all, knowing nobody except one person was vegan!

I wouldn’t mind a vegan Christmas dinner massively, even though I eat meat and I do love traditional Christmas dinner. I’m sure it would be cooked as a special meal whatever it was. My family would be mostly fine although I might have to slip one kid a chicken leg behind a closed door. How willing I was to cook it would entirely depend therefore on how much I wanted my
vegan friend/family member to be there with me.

Tell her to fuck off then. Brat

“ Honestly Bertrand I know one in real life. She considers herself to be an animal activist.”

Animal activists and vegans are completely different things.

Wow. That's beyond entitled.

My "close encounter of the vegan kind" definitely isn't bollocks, thank you, it happened. Names, dates, times and locations are available on request (although as that would be breaching GDPR it would probably be safer, from a potential litigation perspective, to leave the first one out or just call them Ms. V.) And since I do have long-term friends who don't eat animal products, or use them where possible, I know all vegans are not like this. But some of the more recent converts do sometimes seem to be trying to win some kind of "Vegan of the Year" contest.

Reminds me sometimes of when I was at university and all the churches decided it was time to convert the rest of us heathens. Accordingly random people who'd ignored you all year suddenly started sitting next to you at breakfast and trying to chat you up in a bid to get you to come along to the next service. Turns out, the various denominations were having a "God points" contest to see how many converts they could get per hall of residence. And in case you're wondering, that also actually happened.

I did love the comment upthread, mind you, about "plain pasta it is, then, girls". That so made me chuckle and I might have to use a similar comeback in future. (Though I'll obviously have to make sure the pasta doesn't have any egg in it.)

Thanks everyone, in response she was at another of our siblings (I am one of 5) last year and they are veggie so it was less of an issue which is why I thought the option of a veggie meal would be ok but she has become stricter over time..... Yes indeed one of my main issues is that she will go out to places like Costa or chain places but then most of her friends who she would be with don't eat meat but I still don't get it really. We are close but there is a big ages gap (I'm number 1 and she is number 4 so don't have a huge amount in common) Again, I have zero issues with her choices...they just aren't mine and I am happy with my own views.... It is like a religion sometimes I feel and I don't like when people try to convert me...infact makes me less likely to listen!!! She's coming later and baking a vegan xmas cake. I was tempted to show her the thread but haven't!!!! Thanks for all your input.. I just wanted to check I wasn't being mean but I clearly am not! (changed user name due to another thread incase anyone was wondering..)

Oh and CannyCat ..you might have been at uni with me ... I won't say which one as it might be a little outing but that def happened at the Russel Group institution I went to...

@clareykb Did it happen to be a Russell Group institution in a city that has connections with a medieval bandit dressed in a particular shade of green as well as a Victorian novelist who changed the face of English literature? And question number 2, did you happen to have both a gift for languages and some kind of connection with a town not so very far away that has a famous spire, by any chance?

If the answers to both of these questions happen to be yes, would you mind if I sent you a PM?

At least she's entertainingly insane.

@clareykb I meant to add, but if you'd rather not answer those questions, that's fine too. It does sound very much as if it was the same uni though.

Haha no different uni ..I was further North (think famous tea shops and Guy Fawkes) and wish I had a gift for languages I was more staring down a microscope...although sister in question did go to the same one as you...small world.

She is being ridiculous. I’m vegetarian, not vegan, but I wouldn’t expect everyone else to eat a veggie meal just to suit me!

@clareykb Aha, that uni! Lots of floods and a famous former king whose remains were found under a car park not that long ago then? Together with the last man to enter parliament with honest intentions...and yep, I know those tea shoppes. A couple of friends and I had a weekend there a good few years ago and I still remember the little Hallowe'en fondant ghost cakes we had....

Interesting, it may well have been a national membership drive then...and your comment on your sister made me grin, I am constantly astonished in life at just how small our world is.

If she hd severe allergies to anything you were meant to be cooking I would say make a meal to suit her .. but dang! She is vegan.. either she appreciates that you will cater for her dietary requirement or she can sit quietly until everyone has feasted and then go off and have her own meal at her expense ..
I don’t get some people ..

Hell no!! I eat tonnes of vegan food and I love it, but Christmas if you’re non-vegan is all about the turkey, pudding with cream, choc, Stilton, pigs in blankets etc.

Did OP ever come back?

I'm the OP- changed user name for another thread. She is coming after dinner and bringing a vegan Xmas cake... I ordered the turkey this morning! Thanks for all your advice... so glad to see that I'm not being unreasonable.