Most years we celebrate the holidays in a pretty simple manner: close family, good food, board games, and a movie or two. While we’ve definitely celebrated with a larger crowd – inviting or attending holiday dinners with our extended family and friends – it’s never been our typical celebration. This lifestyle prepped me more than ever before for the holiday season two years ago.

Instead of ordering vegan versions of Thanksgiving sides and getting a pie from the local bakery in 2020, everything was made from scratch. I discovered that even though it looked a little different {and was a lot more work}, it didn’t mean it couldn’t be just as fun and festive as before {and honestly taste even more delicious}. Even before COVID-19, I found that intimate celebrations always made my holidays feel a bit more special. In 2020, however, I found that making great food {paired with non-alcoholic moscato}, eating pie for breakfast {and dessert, obviously}, playing board games, and watching a movie made Thanksgiving feel even more magical than it usually would. I decided to recreate this throughout the holiday season that year, and took those traditions into our life outside of the year of being quarantined.

This year I’m excited to recreate a similar experience for Thanksgiving. Plenty of plant-based sides, a couple of pies and my signature shortbread cookies, and a fun day where we can disconnect from being on our phone or computer and instead just enjoy the people, the food, and the activities of the day. Watching Christmas movies while we cook and eating pie before {and after} dinner, while playing board games, makes for the best kind of holidays in my book.

I hope this helps inspire you to create new traditions that can become part of your holiday rituals, whether or not our world is not shut down. And I hope you have many things to share that you’re grateful for before dinner next Thursday. I know I certainly do. xx

x Paris