The Merry Vegan

Last Thursday, I attended The Merry Vegan Holiday Survival Workshop with Jasmin Singer and Marisa Miller Wolfson. It was great. Entertaining and informative. And I got to eat good food. Isa taught us how to roll our eyes and sneer at people who offer us turkey on the holidays just to be rude. Good times.

The workshop was at Bonobo's and I thought my dinner was both tasty and hilarious because I'm incredibly mature:



Here are some of the helpful links we dicussed:

Cruelty-free/ More Eco-friendly/ Fair-trade Retailers
MooShoes.com
Gaiam.com
OrganicAvenue.com
Kaightnyc.com
Downbound.com

Cool Product Ideas
Vegan cookbooks like those from The PPK ladies
Solio charger
faeriesdance.com
Reusable shopping bags
For kids: veg-friendly children’s books & computer game

Experience/Services Gifts
Yoga or dance classes, cooking class at Natural Gourmet Cookery School
Gift certificate to fave vegan restaurant or an eco-spa
Membership to an arts or theater organization (the ballet, symphony,
etc.)
Subscription to Netflix or Fandango Bucks
Subscription to VegNews magazine
41pounds.org
Personal services: cooking, massage, sexual favors, etc.

Charitable Gifts
Trees from Arbor Day Foundation
Adopt a turkey or sponsor a farm animal
Food for Life Global
Trees for Life Global
Sponsor a cat or dog through Best Friends
Adopt a Creature through Oceana and get a cookie cutter of creature.
Globalgiving.com

We also discussed how to keep the commercialism and environmental impact down during the holiday season:

Shop thrift stores (and donate too!)
Used items from your own home and/or re-gifted items
Homemade recipe books, bath salts, baked goods & knit items
Send e-cards
Go through your junk drawer of old cards and spruce them up
Write a note instead of a card
Cut last year’s cards in half and send the top page as a postcard to
someone else
Reuse paper and gift bags from past years
Use old calendars, books, magazines, comics pages as gift wrap
Hemp wrap & biodegradable soy-ink-ribbon
Recycled wrapping paper
craigslist.org
freecycle.org
vivaterra.com

I'd never heard of quite a few of those before, so it was nice to come across some new resources. I hope they do another workshop like this at some point. It was quite enjoyable and I'd recommend any vegans in the area to attend. You might even like to attend if you're not a vegan, but close with someone who is. Or just want to lessen your impact on the environment. Just realize that you will probably hear some comments made about meat-eaters.