To Cheese or Not To Cheese This Holiday Season

This holiday has, by far, been the most difficult and lonely. Since we're moving to another state in a couple of weeks, my husband and I are temporarily living with a friend in their detached guest house. As beautiful as the guest house is, we haven't decorated anything to reflect the holiday spirit. No sparkly lights. No Christmas tree. We had our Christmas presents piled up on a spot on the carpet. Okay, I have to admit that we do have a nice evergreen wreath hanging in the dining room. It smells wonderful and it's the closest thing to a Christmas tree that we have. Yes, we could have bought a Christmas tree for the guest house, but since we're living in our friend's guest house the space doesn't warrant for it. Plus, we didn't want to overstep our hospitable hostess. So as non-festive as our Christmas was, we tried to celebrate and socialize with visiting friends and each other.

One of my former employers and now good friend contacted me last week about her visit to Oahu. I was happy to hear from her since I haven't seen her since 2004. She was kind enough to invite my husband and I over to have dinner with her and her family. Being vegan, I knew it would be a difficult to control what I ate since someone else was cooking, so most of the time, I have to adjust my diet to accommodate vegetarian items like dairy.

As a vegan, you cannot trust others to accommodate your diet. In a world of meat-eaters, many people don't care if something has meat in it. Most people think that vegans are just going through a "phase" or "trend" and that they simply just choose not to eat meat right now. It is also irritating to hear that people who call themselves "vegetarian" eat fish. That's absurd because fish are animals! The word "vegetarian" is defined as someone who abstains from eating any animal meat or its byproducts, and that includes fish and seafood. I understand that people make their own choices but this stereotype only makes it more difficult for people who are truly vegetarian.

Upon arrival, there wasn't much food for us to eat but a small bowl of soup along with some garlic bread and cheese. Luckily, my husband and I went to Costco before dinner and picked-up a big Greek Salad for everyone. To prevent starvation, I convinced my friend and hostess to make some grilled cheese sandwiches so we had more food to eat for dinner. Funny as it was, I ended up making the sandwiches that we ate. With cheese and more cheese, our stomachs became queasy from the greasy cheese. This goes to show that sometimes all you have is cheese to eat whether you like it or not.

Moral of the story is that people who eat meat have no idea what vegans eat. They just think we eat salads and nothing else. Unfortunately with animal products in everything, it only makes it difficult for vegans to go through life like everyone else. Hang in there.