Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends and family. Today is Thanksgiving Sunday, and tomorrow is a stat holiday in Canada.
Why is the day we celebrate Thanksgiving different in Canada and the US? Did the pilgrims hit land above the 49th parallel then head back out to sea only to hit land again south of the 49th six weeks later? It has never made sense to me.
Anybody out there know why this is?
But I can tell you here in the US of A turkey day signals "the holidays" which amounts to a six week period between turkey day and New Year's Day. The vibration in everyone slows down. And already now (I noticed it last weekend actually) there are Christmas ornaments for sale in the Hallmark store. When I asked the clerk about it she told me they start putting stuff out for Santa's arrival in July. No wonder by the time the end of December arrives I am over it all!
So, anyone know the significance of why Canada and the US eat their celebratory turkey in thanks 6 weeks apart?
OK, so I can't claim that I knew this before but 2 minutes of 'research' (aka google-ing) came up with a great synopsis at www.kidzworld.com/article/2614-canadian-thanksgiving
ReplyDeleteEssentially there are two reasons Cdns have their thanksgiving in Oct. The first is that after the World Wars in 1957 the Cdn government changed the original date of thanksgiving from Nov 6 to the second Monday in Oct because Nov 6 kept falling in the same week as Remembrance day, Nov 11. And the second reason why our thanksgiving is earlier than the US is because we celebrate the harvest, rather than the arrival of the pilgrams and, as we are further north than our neighbours, our havests happen earlier than theirs, so it made sense to have it in October.
There you have it my Canadian friend. I wonder if that question is on our citizenship test???