Canadian Thanksgiving

[vaznetti]

So, Canadian Thanksgiving. Last year I was just trying to keep my head above water in the new job, and didn't have energy to pay attention to things like this, but this year the penny has finally dropped: Canadian Thanksgiving is not just an earlier version of American Thanksgiving, and not just because it's on a Monday.

So now I have some questions for the Canadians on my flist (and anyone else who knows the answers to these questions). Do you celebrate on Sunday or on Monday? Do you eat before or after 5 pm? Do you consider Thanksgiving a religious (or a Christian) holiday?

And in typical anal lj fashion, I decided to spam my flist with a poll. Except to be polite, I'll put it

[Poll #587298]



Please feel free to pimp this poll to other people, and please explain further in comments.

Comments

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

Was surfing friendsfriends and saw this, figured I'd tell you how my family does Thanksgiving. I couldn't answer your poll too accurately, mostly because my family doesn't -- and I suspect most Canadians don't either -- make a huge deal about the what/when/how of Thanksgiving. We're not as ritualised as Americans. When I was younger, I think we'd celebrate on the Monday. Now that we're older and busier and take the Monday to do our own stuff, we eat on Sunday.

We eat when the food is ready, no 5 pm deadline or whatever. My family had smoked turkey, stuffing, rack of lamb, veggies, salmon, etc. In previous years we've had sushi, traditional Chinese foods, a whole mish-mash of stuff. Now, I don't know if this is typical of all Canadians or if we're different because we're Chinese.

Canadian Thanksgiving is not particularly religious/Christian, though my family is Christian so we do give thanks and all that. My cousins just come for the food and company.

Thanksgiving is a somewhat important holiday, because we do get the Monday off and people have family dinners, etc. But it's not Christmas for sure.

[vaznetti]

Thanks for taking the time to comment!

I had a feeling that the questions I was framing were determined by my (American) expectations of Thanksgiving, but it seemed like a reasonable place to start. I'm still feeling my way.

[greenelephant.livejournal.com]

I learned from living in the US for six years what a big deal T-giving is there. For me growing up there was never much of a celebration, but that has much more to do with a dysfunctional family dynamic than anything particular to Thanksgiving.

I *love* roast turkey dinner and have on many occasions made the full deal just for myself, so for us the idea of Thanksgiving is connected to my getting to make the traditional meal, and to having the time off to do so.

But as the comment above mentions too, Canadian Thanksgiving does not have the same ritual significance as it does in the US. To my knowledge, we do not have the pilgrim story, nor parades or special shopping sales on the day following. People do not seem to fly across the country to be home with family (in large part, this must be due to the relative brevity of the holidgy). For Americans, it seems that T-giving inaugurates the Holiday Season, but for us, it's too early and is more connected with the fact that the harvest takes place earlier on account of the colder weather.

Still, my favorite holiday ever (plus, isn't it better to have a break half way through the semester rather than a week before the end of classes?) :-)

[vaznetti]

plus, isn't it better to have a break half way through the semester rather than a week before the end of classes?

Ah, but when I was in college we kept going quite late, so there was nearly a month left, and it was the great paper-writing week off.

I think part of this poll was my attempt to figure out that Canadian Thanksgiving doesn't have the same ritual associations -- I kept trying to figure out why there was so much variation in the way people observed it!

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

No idea about religious overtones to the holiday -- I'm a relentlessly secular person who was raised Catholic, and neither of those traditions makes a big deal of T'giving. Maybe Protestants assign more religious significance to the day.

[vaznetti]

A friend of mine claims that it's a religious holiday, but his mother is a minister of some sort, so that may colour his experiences of the holiday. But because in the US Thanksgiving is the great secular holiday (at least in my experience) it struck me as something woth asking about.

[medie]

Hrm...I don't think the holiday is celebrated as a religious holiday per se but I know that my church, at least, acknowledges the day with a little thanksgiving set up at the altar (like the various foods consumed) which are given to a needy family in the community afterward but...we didn't have any particular special celebrations for it other than that.

[vaznetti]

Ah -- that sounds nice!

Thanks for responding,. I hope you aren't having our rain yet. It's a bit damp at the moment, over here.

[medie]

Oh it was loverly.

Welc! No, we haven't gotten it yet. It was a nice sunny day. Probably later on now in the week. But yeah, it'll hit us before long :-p

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

Canadian Thanksgiving is a combination of secular and religious ideas. It's reason for being is to celebrate the gathering of the harvest, the end of the growing season for farmers. It's the day to give thanks for the bounty that we have, and to share it with loved ones. It doesn't have the overtones of nationality and patriotism that Thanksgiving in the U.S. seems to, more of a general, "Thank you to the Powers that Be for giving us all this."
I am lucky this year, I don't have to work, and will be sharing a big turkey dinner with some good friends. Happy Thanksgiving!

[vaznetti]

Happy Thanksgiving to you as well! And thanks for taking the time to answer and comment.

[kwokj.livejournal.com]

I was pointed here by darcydodo. I said it was secular, but it gets a nod in church. I also said it's not that big a deal, but that reflects my family. We don't acknowledge it every single year, and it's much more low key than say, Christmas.

[vaznetti]

Thanks so much for stopping by to answer.

Yes, I do get the sense that it's nowhere near the big deal Christmas is, but it's interesting to me that it's a kind of "optional" holiday for some people.