Two Thanksgivings!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I don’t eat turkey, but I love the rest of the food (ooh pecan pie – my aunt Sherry makes the best!), and I love just spending time with family and friends (plus football!) without the pressure of gifts.  So, when I realized this moving to Canada thing was going to get me TWO Thanksgivings, my ears perked up!  Thanksgiving here takes place on the second Monday of October.  And from my current understanding it seems to have a lot of similarities to Thanksgiving in the US.  Most people have the day off from work.  It is often celebrated with a large family meal where they eat turkey and other similar food.  The “American” football league (versus soccer), if you can call the CFL that, plays a special double header on Monday.  But, as many similarities as there are, there are also some differences.  First, it seems to be widely celebrated in churches that weekend whereas in the US modern day Thanksgiving is virtually a secular holiday - with thankful prayers.  Second, there is no “black Friday” or other start to the holiday shopping season that comes with it (makes sense since it is so early).  

Of course we can debate whether Thursday or Monday is a better day to hold Thanksgiving.  As one fellow American said, “…who has Thanksgiving on a Monday? Clearly, the Canadians messed this one up—if they had it on Thursday they’d get TWO days off of work!”  Valid point.  Also since it is on a Monday, many people in Canada actually celebrate the meal during the weekend (seems mostly Sunday?) which seems to bother some Americans – they like their Thanksgiving meal on the actual day of Thanksgiving.  And, another argument for Thursday is that having it on a Monday gives less time to eat your leftovers during the weekend.  Well, I’m just happy I get two Thanksgivings, maybe those concerned could bring turkey sandwiches to work?

I also heard people complain about it being too early in the year which made me think hard about when is the “best” time of the year for Thanksgiving.  Since it is supposed to be a time to give thanks for a bountiful harvest, I feel like the US is too late and close to Christmas (then you get a mad rush for Christmas shopping – can’t we just focus on being thankful?), and here seems too early in the year (I’m still waiting for one more day of hot weather).  But think about it, in Canada if you’re celebrating the harvest and much of your country is farther north than Toronto, you better celebrate in early October or there won’t be anything left.  But, growing up in Minnesota, I always felt that end of November was too late since you can almost guarantee it is freezing and we have snow – the growing season most certainly ended earlier in the year.  But, you have the opposite problem there where the rest of the country is warmer than MN, so it could very well be an “average” end of the growing season for the country.  I think the ideal time, if I got to vote, would be the end of October to provide a holiday midway between Labor Day and Christmas, but then what would we do with Halloween…a true dilemma.  Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to everyone!