In Telluride, Colorado the ski resort opens Thanksgiving Day every year.

My family has a tradition of waking up at 7 a.m to be the first on the slopes. We eat a quick breakfast of hot oatmeal with cinnamon and raisins, and throw our ski gear on. 

We load up the car and we are on our way to the ski resort by 8 a.m. We quickly run to the bottom of Chair 4, the main chair at the ski resort, so we can have the first chair of the season. 

Our family of five patiently waits for what feels like forever for the chair to finally start moving. 

We almost always get the first chair up. We get up the slope and we’re ready to shred. Our family tries to ski all day, but it can be hard to ski from 9:00 until 4:00 when there are only two chair lifts open and one or two runs on each. 

To keep our motivation levels high, we play some fun games. For example, we will ditch our poles and one ski at the top of the chair and struggle to ski down on one ski. 

This is my family’s tradition for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it is my favorite. It may seem weird to some families, but it is our normal.

My entire family is also vegan, so you could imagine how difficult making a vegan Thanksgiving feast is. 

Luckily, the brand Field Roast makes a delicious all plant-based vegan roast. You can bake it in the oven just like a regular roast. We make a delicious glaze with rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper and other seasonings. 

The rest of dinner is relatively easy to prepare. We make mashed potatoes using margarine, a vegan butter. We bake roasted vegetables with the roast, along with stuffing and green beans. 

The final touch to the meal is cranberry sauce and gravy. There are many alternatives for gravy made with vegetable stock rather than meat-based stocks. 

To me, these roasts taste identical to ham, considering the fact that I haven’t had ham in almost four years. Thanksgiving has never tasted better for a vegan.

I am so excited to go home and hit the slopes again this year. Happy Thanksgiving!