For some reason this year when I left for home for winter break, I was skeptical about whether I could handle three weeks trapped in my parents house. Typically I find myself going into a sort of “hibernation” over winter break. I spend the majority of my break at home, cozied up on the couch reading book after book after book. This is definitely one of my favorite parts of going home, however, I always get cabin fever after about a week of seclusion. Thankfully, the solution to this is easy: see my friends! Who would’ve thought it could be that easy?
Thanks to this solution I’ve had a very pleasant winter break thus far, and am looking forward to the next week and a half of relaxation and bliss.
One of the other benefits of going home, however, is all of the awesome stocking stuffers I received on Christmas day. I told my Mother this year that all I wanted was a stocking (because she makes the most awesome stockings, of course!). I thought that this request might reduce the amount of gifts I received, however, this just caused my Mother to give me three stockings to open on Christmas morning!
Some of the awesome vegan and cooking-related gifts I got for Christmas are as follows:
My considerate Mother armed me with loads of delicious vegan chocolate this year. I’ve never tried the different dairy free chocolate bars from Chocolate Dream, but I’ve been wanting to for some time. I’ve also recently fallen for the brand Chocolove. They’re not all vegan, but several versions of the dark chocolate are… and they’re also quite decadent and delicious. Plus, they all include a famous love poem inside the wrapper. Just another plus!
By far the best, and funniest gift I pulled out of my stocking was a bottle of wine. This seemed extremely appropriate, because I gave both my Mother and Step-Dad alcoholic beverages for Christmas as well (wine and beer respectively). I saw this as definite proof that I am my Mother’s daughter.
This could prove to be the most useful gift I received this year. I first read about this on VegNews.com, and found the cookbook on Etsy. The cookbooks only cost a couple of dollars, and the proceeds go to benefit an animal shelter in Iran. What could be better? Oh yeah, all of the delicious Middle Eastern recipes loaded in there. And they’re vegan too, of course. Hopefully I’ll be posting some recipes from this soon.
The final cooking-related gift I received was a variety of cooking and baking utensils. My Mom gave me a paring knife, an egg beater (?) and that other weird thing you see in the picture (she says I can use it to make better pie crusts). So we’ll see how this all works out. I’m sure they’ll all come in handy.
Other than that, I hope everyone had pleasant holidays, and enjoyed some delicious vegan food!
