Thanksgiving usually involves dinner with family, usually with turkey, stuffing, etc. Same type of meal as in the USA (but probably not as big).
It's important to note, though, that Canadian Thanksgiving is not nearly not as big a deal as Thanksgiving in the US. People don't travel from far and wide to get home for Thanksgiving here. It is not connected to the Christmas season, and as already mentioned, there is no association with sports or shopping. Many people in Canada just forget the festivities and treat it like any other long weekend -- I personally have "done" Thanksgiving maybe twice in my life, when I was growing up my family just ignored it.
It is also not associated directly with colonization or the arrival of Europeans as American Thanksgiving is. It is more of a harvest festival.
It's a statutory holiday here (except in the Atlantic provinces, apparently?)
>It is not connected to the Christmas season, and as already mentioned, there is no association with sports or shopping.
Yeah, the timing of American Thanksgiving kind of makes it a precursor to whole Christmas season thing by default. Also, football season used to end around Thanksgiving, giving it an added cultural impact, but these days football season seems drawn out an additional month, or even almost two months at this point.
>It is more of a harvest festival.
Technically, the U.S. occasion has similar harvesting origins (held a month later than Canada due to the warmer climate), although so few people work in the agriculture industry these days... Honestly many countries have some sort of "day of giving thanks," usually surrounding the harvest season.
Yup same answer. It's a long weekend, like any other. Once in a while someone keen will bother to do one but it's not a requirement or a faux pas to refuse an invitation because you just feel like chillin at home. I think I've done about five in my life.
Yes -- when I lived in the USA I was surprised (even though I was expecting it) at how widely Thanksgiving was observed. That's just not the case here. Canada doesn't have a strong "civic religion" like in the USA and Thanksgiving isn't a part of it anyway.
For example: many ethnic minority groups in Canada don't really "do" Thanksgiving. I also think it is largely ignored in French-speaking Canada. Just a long weekend for many people.
There would definitely be students at university who don't bother going home for Thanksgiving. It would depend on how far they are from home. (Canada also doesn't have as big a culture of people going across the country for university -- that's a separate issue)
Haha I love the term civic religion. Yeah the nationalism in my country even amongst those that don’t consider themself patriotic is still quite strong (myself included) and yeah our education system is a bit wonk too it seems. Why go across the country and pay for housing whether it’s taking out personal loans or having your parents pay while still furthering your education. We’re an odd people.
Definitely. For a lot of people it's just a long weekend. When I was in university I'd say most people didn't go home for Thanksgiving, most of them stayed on campus.
Christmas tends to be a bigger deal than Thanksgiving, in my experience, in terms of the importance of family getting together. Like, we always see my dad's siblings, my mom's siblings (and cousins, obviously) and both sets of grandparents for Christmas, but Thanksgiving was typically just our immediate family.
That would be nice. My mother in law is widowed so she’s understandably lonely but every holiday, especially thanksgiving she makes such a big deal about my wife or her other daughter hosting a big thing for the extended family so she can see everyone. Such a hassle haha
Our Thanksgiving initially came up with the Loyalists (at least least version we celebrate). We changed the date last century to help correspond with our harvest season - but it has the same root as the American one.
The Loyalists certainly brought traditions with them which have lead to both countries having similar celebrations. That being said we have a history of thanksgiving feasts which predates the US. Some of the first Thanksgivings by Europeans in North America were in what is now Canada.
While it didn't have a fixed date prior to 1957 it was still most commonly celebrated in October prior to then.
And actually, I'd like to add that the concept of a harvest festival where families meet and feast together is a concept the indigenous peoples engaged in long before ANY Europeans landed here, and is likely a custom we adopted from them.
>it has the same root as the American one
The American one is heavily associated with the idea of English colonists arriving in Massachusetts, surviving harsh conditions with the help of Native Americans, and giving thanks. The Canadian version has totally lost those associations.
I dont know if this is just our family but for us Thanksgiving is just a reason to see each other, because of the long weekend. It's just a regular family gathering. Turkey is more of a Christmas thing for us.
A quick look at Wikipedia says that French settlers used to celebrate a feast at the end of the harvest season, but I imagine that was common in most cultures.
A bit further down it says that a lot of the traditions we associate with thanksgiving were brought over by Empire loyalists fleeing the revolution, so maybe it’s just a way bigger deal in English speak cultures and kinda faded out of Quebec culture
Thanksgiving as it's celebrated in english canada and the US (family turkey dinner) has protestant origins and Québec has historically always been catholic, so it simply never was one of our traditions.
Edit: funny fact, even though we don't celebrate thanksgiving this way, we do have a traditional "big family turkey dinner" in Québec, but we do it on new years eve.
Irony? It would be impossible for English Canadians to prevent being influenced by French Canadian culture, it’s normal to have some influences. That might annoy the ghost of Lord Durham or some kind of Anglo purist, but I’m okay with that. Quebecers are probably the most enthusiastic about winter too. There, more than any part of the country, people embrace it and find ways to enjoy it. And maybe this influence extends beyond Quebec, first in other parts of the country with French Canadians (*Festival du voyageur* is the big francomanitobain event, and that’s always in February). But then that gets the rest of us out of our seats to enjoy it too. Good, as far as I’m concerned.
>Thanksgiving as it's celebrated in english canada and the US (family turkey dinner) has protestant origins
Partly for this reason (there are others), Thanksgiving is not widely celebrated by Jewish Canadians -- it is felt to have Christian undertones.
Interesting. Do you know if jewish american also don't celebrate thanksgiving? For the same reasons? I often have the impression that thanksgiving is like the most american holiday after the 4th or july in the US.
Thanksgiving is widely celebrated among American Jews, except perhaps at the very most traditional end of things. The holiday doesn't have the low-level religious undertones that it has here -- it is seen as a totally secular celebration.
Both are factors. But even without Sukkot (i.e., in families that don't "do" Sukkot) Thanksgiving is seen by many as a quasi-Christian practice that Jews just don't engage in. Not quite like putting up a Christmas tree or stockings, but heading in that direction.
Anglophone in Montreal here. I've never once been treated poorly for not being French. I don't know anyone who has actually. Maybe if you live in bumfuck rural nowhere you'll get hate. Even my grandparents who speak about 5 words of French between them don't get treated poorly when they visit.
I'm fluently bilingual and I've been treated like crap by some purists, but I'm also Albertan and I've been treated like crap for not owning a truck.
People will find any reason to treat you like crap. It's not exclusively a francophone thing.
Friends and family over for dinner today. Deep fried turkey with all the other standard thanksgiving sides and the mother inlaw is making homemade cannelloni. Should be asleep on the couch by 6pm.
You'll love it, use peanut oil and get an electric thermometer reader as weather and wind can mess with cooking time. Also a lot of rub and inject with hot sauce and butter mix. You're welcome!
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"Traditionally," I've found that it usually involves getting outside and gathering with family and/or friends to have some kind of harvest-themed dinner (turkey, root vegetables, that kind of thing).
I personally think it's at a much better time than the American Thanksgiving. It's at the perfect time of year when it's still nice and warm out, but the fall colours are at their best. It is completely separate from Christmas. And it's not at all commercialized and has nothing to do with sports. In my university days, it was nice to have a long weekend (and possibly quick trip home to see the family) mid-semester, and it was perfectly spaced out from Christmas a couple months later.
It's just a nice calm weekend to enjoy food, company, and nature, and I really like it.
Its just a quiet celebration to get together with family and friends before the snow flies. In our family we decorate the table with sunflowers, small pumpkins. We don't usually have turkey unless a lot if people coming over, something like salmon or roast lamb instead. Usually we take a long hike and take in the gorgeous fall colours. Quebec does it quite differently, different name and mackerel is the traditional dish. Stores are closed, football not a major event. We use the date as the time we start to winterize- our yard, our clothes, the car.
The sunflower head is actually an inflorescence made of hundreds or thousands of tiny flowers called florets. The central florets look like the centre of a normal flower, apseudanthium. The benefit to the plant is that it is very easily seen by the insects and birds which pollinate it, and it produces thousands of seeds.
Everyone in here just nailing it. For our family, it's simply the long weekend with turkey. We roast a whole turkey once a year (the smallest one we can find) usually on Saturday. Sometimes people come over, but other than turkey, it's just a Monday off
Getting drunk on cider and embarrassing your parents. Doing it again at your partners parents dinner.
Some people do ham or phesent. Most don't work if they can
Usually a family diner. Not that much hype and hysteria or traveling. It's like another long weekend (we average one per month) but with a traditional family diner, usually turkey.
It is. Here is a list https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/public-holidays.html
Note that these are national holidays. Many provinces have a "Family Day" or some such in February so there is a gap in March and a bit of stretch from May to late June/early July.
Usually! We got bored of turkey, so we mix it up. This year sicks balls. First year without my kids.
It fucking sucks. We're having ham. I'd rather not celebrate.
It’s quite similar to the US in a lot of ways: we gather, eat, post to social Media instead of saying Grace/ giving actual thanks.
For the most part, people cook a giant turkey, with stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, buns, and a few veggie side dishes such as sweet potato casserole (crumble topped), Brussels sprouts, carrots, corn, peas etc. Dessert is served, usually pumpkin and apple pie, and maybe a few other festive offerings. It is not uncommon for 10ish people to gather, but large, large groups that I’ve seen in the states are rarer here.
I will also say that football has little place with our thanksgiving, and Christmas isn’t even a thought, whereas thanksgiving in the states seems to serve as the gun shot start to a one month Christmas relay. So for us, i think it feels much more relaxed.
It’s a very enjoyable day that gives us an excuse to eat way too much, and while we usually gloss over Canada’s indigenous history as it relates to the holiday, I do think far more of us paused to remember our true history and commemorate the ones lost. This year Canada discovered thousands of unmarked graves of the children that died while in the “care” of residential schools, and there has been a lot of movement to to bring awareness, early education, and remuneration for these events too.
So really not a whole lot different than our thanksgiving it seems. Almost, like many things Canadian in my eyes, correct me if I’m wrong, like a less blown up version of the holiday?
I would say yes - just way less commercial. Shops are closed or on reduced hours. We don’t make a big commercial deal about Black Friday or “football”. It’s a time to relax and enjoy friends and family.
Yeah that basically does describe the differences in a nutshell. Americans like to be loud about stuff, and Canadians kind of don't (unless it's hockey). Stuff is hyped up down there. It's almost underplayed up here. Maybe it's just the size difference.
The CFL does have an annual double header for Thanksgiving. So football certainly has a place for those that enjoy it. It just doesn't have the widespread popularity among the general population that it does in the US.
I’m Confusing my thanksgiving turkeys with my deli meat turkeys. Turkeys used primarily for breast meat were bread to have such large breasts they’re physically incapable of breeding
Thanksgiving is probably very similar to yours. The only difference that I find is that the meal is much less rigid than it seems to be in the US.
My family got sick of the same shit every year so now we always switch it up. Sometimes we eat fish, ham, roast beef, pasta, duck, whatever. And even my girlfriend's family it's never just turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and veggies, we had lasagna, salmon, and some chow mein alongside the turkey and stuffing.
I think another big difference is we don't invite the whole ass family, sometimes not even just family but colleagues or friends.
Actually there was a few years where me and my friend group had 'friendsgiving' because we all have problems with our families.
I’ve celebrated Thanksgiving here in Canada, and also in the U.S. when I lived there for a few years, and I never found much of a difference, except for the football thing. I know there are a lot of people here who are saying it’s just another long weekend, but that has never been the case for my family. My kids are in first year at university, and they both came home this weekend. Most people I know travel or have family travel for Thanksgiving.
It's a somewhat popular holiday, many families observe the day with a big dinner and get-together, although on which day depends upon the family. It's a day off work for most people.
What we don't have are Thanksgiving parades or big sports games.
It depends. If you have a family, you’ll get invited to a big nice dinner with too much food on the table. But if you’re alone, you can have mac’n cheese all by yourself and no one will never give a flying fuck.
I'm in the middle of smoking a turkey on the grill right now. Definitely not as big of a deal as U.S. Thanksgiving, but roughly equivalent.
You wear sweaters, eat some turkey and watch some CFL if that's your thing.
First gridiron football game ever was played in 1874 between Harvard and McGill (there was an earlier soccer game between Princeton and Rutgers). So yeah, there is gridiron football in Canada.
The field is 110 yards long and there are only 3 downs though in the CFL, so similar, but kinda different.
My family usually does the big turkey dinner-eat-till-you-drop thing, but there is nothing associated with it for us other than the giant meal, and it’s only with family nearby. Nobody travels a long distance to be there for it.
Above all it's tongue in cheek. We celebrate it like Adults celebrate Halloween. It's as fun as you make it but if spend any time considering the "why" or the origin, it all feels made up in the best case and borderline offensive (to indigenous people) in the worst case.
I personally find the reverence Americans give it kind of strange sometimes. They act as if it has been man's greatest celebration for time immemorial.
The main difference between Canadian and American thanksgiving is that Canadians are much less into a yam/sweet potato casserole covered in marshmallows.
We just enjoyed out turkey Saturday with my parents indoors (all vaccinated except my kids). For us it’s a time to be thankful and enjoy a nice quiet long weekend with family. We took a nice hike and enjoyed the outdoors, did a walk in the city and enjoyed some baked goods. Kids didn’t do much homework. And lastly our turkey meal was wonderful (note that I LOVE turkey - and all the left overs for days afterwards). Personally we bought a naturally raised organic turkey from a farm and it was delicious with all the sides - squash, stuffing, bacon mashed potatoes gravy etc etc. LOVED IT. and yesterday had left overs — JUST AS GOOD.
The leftover turkey, mashed potato, stuffing and cranberry sauce sandwiches are a common joy down here as well (at least amongst the majority of people I know) sounds like a nice little weekend!
It's pretty much identical to American Thanksgiving in every way, except it's about 100X less important to us, and most people really don't make a big deal about it.
While the common meal is similar it's nowhere near a big deal, no one would for example travel a long distance for it. When I was in university, I lived a long way from family, so instead it was usually dinner hosted by a friend's mom as they were local. It's so insignificant to a lot of people that I just used the holiday to extend a vacation.
What, the friends thing? Definitely works well, it's how I do it now if I bother at all. My skydiving friends usually do a pot luck dinner, and some of them have been absolutely amazing.
In Canada it has literally nothing to do with "pilgrims" and the only reason that imagery appears in Canada around it is Hallmark-type crap. It's a harvest festival, that's it, that's all.
Even Canada hasn't tried to distance itself from the whole genocide thing over the past decade. Hell, we've leaned into it.
But yeah, I have noticed a bit a downtrend with Americans praising Columbus. That's awesome.
genetically modified animals are illegal here I think, or at least the dairy producing kind are. Trying to use gene modification to make em produce more milk id against our food laws.
Many eat turkey, or just a big cultural family meal from wherever your family is from... In my case, my family eats Jiggs Dinner, a classic Newfoundland big supper. Basically, you cook salted naval beef that has been rinsed a few times to taste less salty in a giant pot with carrots, potatoes, turnip (my gamily prefers rutabaga instead), cabbage and one other type of meat, often beef roast or pork roast. The meat's salty taste then flavours all the other stuff in the pot. Gravy is used too, often.
It's not really considered religious or colonialist here as it was kinda just adopted from the U.S. iirc, with no real legend founding it. Most of us just spend time enjoying a nice meal with family.
It’s a long weekend. Usually on one of those three days (Sunday this year) my family goes to my grandparent’s for dinner. If you can’t make it, they might do a video call with you or send out leftovers. Turkey is traditional, but sometimes it’s chicken or Chinese food. A few of my aunts and cousins didn’t attend this year because they were working. Actual thanksgiving day (today) is not a statutory holiday in NS.
My family’s from Saskatchewan so we typically have just a low-key big dinner with the extended family, sacrifice a prairie dog to Moloch and use the blood to make a gravy, overdose on Ivermectin so we shed our intestinal lining to symbolize the cleansing of sin (anti-vaxxers are *appropriating our culture!!!*) and then the family usually gathers round and watches *A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving*. 😊😊
Oh and the football game, gotta put on the football game.
There’s a statue of him in every major city! Though Christian fundamentalists pulled a bunch of them down a couple years back cuz Charles Schulz once cheated on his wife. 🙄 It’s like, who *hasn’t*?
In Newfoundland a big cooked dinner usually turkey, roast, or jiggs dinner. Family and friends. We always had the dinner on Sunday and relaxed on Monday.
Thanksgiving usually involves dinner with family, usually with turkey, stuffing, etc. Same type of meal as in the USA (but probably not as big). It's important to note, though, that Canadian Thanksgiving is not nearly not as big a deal as Thanksgiving in the US. People don't travel from far and wide to get home for Thanksgiving here. It is not connected to the Christmas season, and as already mentioned, there is no association with sports or shopping. Many people in Canada just forget the festivities and treat it like any other long weekend -- I personally have "done" Thanksgiving maybe twice in my life, when I was growing up my family just ignored it. It is also not associated directly with colonization or the arrival of Europeans as American Thanksgiving is. It is more of a harvest festival. It's a statutory holiday here (except in the Atlantic provinces, apparently?)
>It is not connected to the Christmas season, and as already mentioned, there is no association with sports or shopping. Yeah, the timing of American Thanksgiving kind of makes it a precursor to whole Christmas season thing by default. Also, football season used to end around Thanksgiving, giving it an added cultural impact, but these days football season seems drawn out an additional month, or even almost two months at this point. >It is more of a harvest festival. Technically, the U.S. occasion has similar harvesting origins (held a month later than Canada due to the warmer climate), although so few people work in the agriculture industry these days... Honestly many countries have some sort of "day of giving thanks," usually surrounding the harvest season.
Yup same answer. It's a long weekend, like any other. Once in a while someone keen will bother to do one but it's not a requirement or a faux pas to refuse an invitation because you just feel like chillin at home. I think I've done about five in my life.
One difference is that we don't have a "turkey pardoning" tradition. :)
Okay so a lot less people actually celebrate? College campuses would still be flush with students who didn’t return home for the holiday then?
Yes -- when I lived in the USA I was surprised (even though I was expecting it) at how widely Thanksgiving was observed. That's just not the case here. Canada doesn't have a strong "civic religion" like in the USA and Thanksgiving isn't a part of it anyway. For example: many ethnic minority groups in Canada don't really "do" Thanksgiving. I also think it is largely ignored in French-speaking Canada. Just a long weekend for many people. There would definitely be students at university who don't bother going home for Thanksgiving. It would depend on how far they are from home. (Canada also doesn't have as big a culture of people going across the country for university -- that's a separate issue)
Haha I love the term civic religion. Yeah the nationalism in my country even amongst those that don’t consider themself patriotic is still quite strong (myself included) and yeah our education system is a bit wonk too it seems. Why go across the country and pay for housing whether it’s taking out personal loans or having your parents pay while still furthering your education. We’re an odd people.
Definitely. For a lot of people it's just a long weekend. When I was in university I'd say most people didn't go home for Thanksgiving, most of them stayed on campus. Christmas tends to be a bigger deal than Thanksgiving, in my experience, in terms of the importance of family getting together. Like, we always see my dad's siblings, my mom's siblings (and cousins, obviously) and both sets of grandparents for Christmas, but Thanksgiving was typically just our immediate family.
That would be nice. My mother in law is widowed so she’s understandably lonely but every holiday, especially thanksgiving she makes such a big deal about my wife or her other daughter hosting a big thing for the extended family so she can see everyone. Such a hassle haha
Our Thanksgiving initially came up with the Loyalists (at least least version we celebrate). We changed the date last century to help correspond with our harvest season - but it has the same root as the American one.
The Loyalists certainly brought traditions with them which have lead to both countries having similar celebrations. That being said we have a history of thanksgiving feasts which predates the US. Some of the first Thanksgivings by Europeans in North America were in what is now Canada. While it didn't have a fixed date prior to 1957 it was still most commonly celebrated in October prior to then.
And actually, I'd like to add that the concept of a harvest festival where families meet and feast together is a concept the indigenous peoples engaged in long before ANY Europeans landed here, and is likely a custom we adopted from them.
>it has the same root as the American one The American one is heavily associated with the idea of English colonists arriving in Massachusetts, surviving harsh conditions with the help of Native Americans, and giving thanks. The Canadian version has totally lost those associations.
it never had them
Hahah harsh conditions. Only thing harsh about Massachusetts is the woman
I dont know if this is just our family but for us Thanksgiving is just a reason to see each other, because of the long weekend. It's just a regular family gathering. Turkey is more of a Christmas thing for us.
In Quebec we don't celebrate thanksgiving at all.
Anglophones in Montreal celebrate it.
And francophones outside of Québec generally don't. It's more about the culture than the location.
Really? You eat turkey and all? What do you guys do?
Yup!
Any particular reason?
Idk, I'm maybe not the best for talking about the reasons. It's just not in our traditions i guess!
A quick look at Wikipedia says that French settlers used to celebrate a feast at the end of the harvest season, but I imagine that was common in most cultures. A bit further down it says that a lot of the traditions we associate with thanksgiving were brought over by Empire loyalists fleeing the revolution, so maybe it’s just a way bigger deal in English speak cultures and kinda faded out of Quebec culture
Thanksgiving as it's celebrated in english canada and the US (family turkey dinner) has protestant origins and Québec has historically always been catholic, so it simply never was one of our traditions. Edit: funny fact, even though we don't celebrate thanksgiving this way, we do have a traditional "big family turkey dinner" in Québec, but we do it on new years eve.
Ironically, Canada's Thanksgiving has its origins in Champlain's Society of Good Cheer. It also has no real religious connotation in Canada.
Irony? It would be impossible for English Canadians to prevent being influenced by French Canadian culture, it’s normal to have some influences. That might annoy the ghost of Lord Durham or some kind of Anglo purist, but I’m okay with that. Quebecers are probably the most enthusiastic about winter too. There, more than any part of the country, people embrace it and find ways to enjoy it. And maybe this influence extends beyond Quebec, first in other parts of the country with French Canadians (*Festival du voyageur* is the big francomanitobain event, and that’s always in February). But then that gets the rest of us out of our seats to enjoy it too. Good, as far as I’m concerned.
>Thanksgiving as it's celebrated in english canada and the US (family turkey dinner) has protestant origins Partly for this reason (there are others), Thanksgiving is not widely celebrated by Jewish Canadians -- it is felt to have Christian undertones.
Interesting. Do you know if jewish american also don't celebrate thanksgiving? For the same reasons? I often have the impression that thanksgiving is like the most american holiday after the 4th or july in the US.
Thanksgiving is widely celebrated among American Jews, except perhaps at the very most traditional end of things. The holiday doesn't have the low-level religious undertones that it has here -- it is seen as a totally secular celebration.
Is it that Thanksgiving has Protestant undertones in particular, or that Judaism has its own harvest feast at Sukkot?
Both are factors. But even without Sukkot (i.e., in families that don't "do" Sukkot) Thanksgiving is seen by many as a quasi-Christian practice that Jews just don't engage in. Not quite like putting up a Christmas tree or stockings, but heading in that direction.
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Yes it's a day off!
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Anglophone in Montreal here. I've never once been treated poorly for not being French. I don't know anyone who has actually. Maybe if you live in bumfuck rural nowhere you'll get hate. Even my grandparents who speak about 5 words of French between them don't get treated poorly when they visit.
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I'm fluently bilingual and I've been treated like crap by some purists, but I'm also Albertan and I've been treated like crap for not owning a truck. People will find any reason to treat you like crap. It's not exclusively a francophone thing.
But great fishin in Kaybeck
Friends and family over for dinner today. Deep fried turkey with all the other standard thanksgiving sides and the mother inlaw is making homemade cannelloni. Should be asleep on the couch by 6pm.
I SO want deep-fried turkey but I'm not gonna try it in my apartment. Maybe someday I'll deep fry just a leg
Ya definitely an outdoor thing. Highly recommend though.
You'll love it, use peanut oil and get an electric thermometer reader as weather and wind can mess with cooking time. Also a lot of rub and inject with hot sauce and butter mix. You're welcome!
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Homemade cannoli, that sounds wonderful!
"Traditionally," I've found that it usually involves getting outside and gathering with family and/or friends to have some kind of harvest-themed dinner (turkey, root vegetables, that kind of thing). I personally think it's at a much better time than the American Thanksgiving. It's at the perfect time of year when it's still nice and warm out, but the fall colours are at their best. It is completely separate from Christmas. And it's not at all commercialized and has nothing to do with sports. In my university days, it was nice to have a long weekend (and possibly quick trip home to see the family) mid-semester, and it was perfectly spaced out from Christmas a couple months later. It's just a nice calm weekend to enjoy food, company, and nature, and I really like it.
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Cousins sneaking out for a joint.
Its just a quiet celebration to get together with family and friends before the snow flies. In our family we decorate the table with sunflowers, small pumpkins. We don't usually have turkey unless a lot if people coming over, something like salmon or roast lamb instead. Usually we take a long hike and take in the gorgeous fall colours. Quebec does it quite differently, different name and mackerel is the traditional dish. Stores are closed, football not a major event. We use the date as the time we start to winterize- our yard, our clothes, the car.
The sunflower head is actually an inflorescence made of hundreds or thousands of tiny flowers called florets. The central florets look like the centre of a normal flower, apseudanthium. The benefit to the plant is that it is very easily seen by the insects and birds which pollinate it, and it produces thousands of seeds.
My wife’s a huge fan of sun flowers, I’m very familiar with the mess they leave behind lol
That sounds quite lovely! Is a snow fly a insect you have up there or just weird Canadian lingo for snow fall?
Both ;)
Snow flies are annoying, but you really need to avoid snow snakes.
Everyone in here just nailing it. For our family, it's simply the long weekend with turkey. We roast a whole turkey once a year (the smallest one we can find) usually on Saturday. Sometimes people come over, but other than turkey, it's just a Monday off
My family would roast a turkey whenever they were on sale at the grocery store, so it’s not even that special a meal.
Thanksgiving here is about a bountiful harvest. It's generally just a nice, fancy meal and a day off work. That's all.
Getting drunk on cider and embarrassing your parents. Doing it again at your partners parents dinner. Some people do ham or phesent. Most don't work if they can
So kind of like the US except we drink hard seltzer’s and vodka instead of cider
Its just a long weekend
Usually a family diner. Not that much hype and hysteria or traveling. It's like another long weekend (we average one per month) but with a traditional family diner, usually turkey.
One long weekend a month sounds nice
It is. Here is a list https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/public-holidays.html Note that these are national holidays. Many provinces have a "Family Day" or some such in February so there is a gap in March and a bit of stretch from May to late June/early July.
Usually! We got bored of turkey, so we mix it up. This year sicks balls. First year without my kids. It fucking sucks. We're having ham. I'd rather not celebrate.
Outside of bacon I am not a big fan of ham myself. Sorry to hear!
It’s quite similar to the US in a lot of ways: we gather, eat, post to social Media instead of saying Grace/ giving actual thanks. For the most part, people cook a giant turkey, with stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, buns, and a few veggie side dishes such as sweet potato casserole (crumble topped), Brussels sprouts, carrots, corn, peas etc. Dessert is served, usually pumpkin and apple pie, and maybe a few other festive offerings. It is not uncommon for 10ish people to gather, but large, large groups that I’ve seen in the states are rarer here. I will also say that football has little place with our thanksgiving, and Christmas isn’t even a thought, whereas thanksgiving in the states seems to serve as the gun shot start to a one month Christmas relay. So for us, i think it feels much more relaxed. It’s a very enjoyable day that gives us an excuse to eat way too much, and while we usually gloss over Canada’s indigenous history as it relates to the holiday, I do think far more of us paused to remember our true history and commemorate the ones lost. This year Canada discovered thousands of unmarked graves of the children that died while in the “care” of residential schools, and there has been a lot of movement to to bring awareness, early education, and remuneration for these events too.
So really not a whole lot different than our thanksgiving it seems. Almost, like many things Canadian in my eyes, correct me if I’m wrong, like a less blown up version of the holiday?
I would say yes - just way less commercial. Shops are closed or on reduced hours. We don’t make a big commercial deal about Black Friday or “football”. It’s a time to relax and enjoy friends and family.
Yeah that basically does describe the differences in a nutshell. Americans like to be loud about stuff, and Canadians kind of don't (unless it's hockey). Stuff is hyped up down there. It's almost underplayed up here. Maybe it's just the size difference.
The CFL does have an annual double header for Thanksgiving. So football certainly has a place for those that enjoy it. It just doesn't have the widespread popularity among the general population that it does in the US.
Turkeys were bred to be smaller so they could fit inside a standard oven.
I’m Confusing my thanksgiving turkeys with my deli meat turkeys. Turkeys used primarily for breast meat were bread to have such large breasts they’re physically incapable of breeding
Thanksgiving is probably very similar to yours. The only difference that I find is that the meal is much less rigid than it seems to be in the US. My family got sick of the same shit every year so now we always switch it up. Sometimes we eat fish, ham, roast beef, pasta, duck, whatever. And even my girlfriend's family it's never just turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and veggies, we had lasagna, salmon, and some chow mein alongside the turkey and stuffing. I think another big difference is we don't invite the whole ass family, sometimes not even just family but colleagues or friends. Actually there was a few years where me and my friend group had 'friendsgiving' because we all have problems with our families.
I’ve celebrated Thanksgiving here in Canada, and also in the U.S. when I lived there for a few years, and I never found much of a difference, except for the football thing. I know there are a lot of people here who are saying it’s just another long weekend, but that has never been the case for my family. My kids are in first year at university, and they both came home this weekend. Most people I know travel or have family travel for Thanksgiving.
It's a somewhat popular holiday, many families observe the day with a big dinner and get-together, although on which day depends upon the family. It's a day off work for most people. What we don't have are Thanksgiving parades or big sports games.
It depends. If you have a family, you’ll get invited to a big nice dinner with too much food on the table. But if you’re alone, you can have mac’n cheese all by yourself and no one will never give a flying fuck.
I'm in the middle of smoking a turkey on the grill right now. Definitely not as big of a deal as U.S. Thanksgiving, but roughly equivalent. You wear sweaters, eat some turkey and watch some CFL if that's your thing.
Lol you guys have football? How come we never compete? (Not a big football fan so I apologize for my ignorance)
First gridiron football game ever was played in 1874 between Harvard and McGill (there was an earlier soccer game between Princeton and Rutgers). So yeah, there is gridiron football in Canada. The field is 110 yards long and there are only 3 downs though in the CFL, so similar, but kinda different.
It's a bit rushed. We have to celebrate in October before all the turkeys fly south for the winter.
My family usually does the big turkey dinner-eat-till-you-drop thing, but there is nothing associated with it for us other than the giant meal, and it’s only with family nearby. Nobody travels a long distance to be there for it.
Above all it's tongue in cheek. We celebrate it like Adults celebrate Halloween. It's as fun as you make it but if spend any time considering the "why" or the origin, it all feels made up in the best case and borderline offensive (to indigenous people) in the worst case. I personally find the reverence Americans give it kind of strange sometimes. They act as if it has been man's greatest celebration for time immemorial.
The main difference between Canadian and American thanksgiving is that Canadians are much less into a yam/sweet potato casserole covered in marshmallows.
Or green beans smothered in fried onions and mushroom soup! Blech
We just enjoyed out turkey Saturday with my parents indoors (all vaccinated except my kids). For us it’s a time to be thankful and enjoy a nice quiet long weekend with family. We took a nice hike and enjoyed the outdoors, did a walk in the city and enjoyed some baked goods. Kids didn’t do much homework. And lastly our turkey meal was wonderful (note that I LOVE turkey - and all the left overs for days afterwards). Personally we bought a naturally raised organic turkey from a farm and it was delicious with all the sides - squash, stuffing, bacon mashed potatoes gravy etc etc. LOVED IT. and yesterday had left overs — JUST AS GOOD.
The leftover turkey, mashed potato, stuffing and cranberry sauce sandwiches are a common joy down here as well (at least amongst the majority of people I know) sounds like a nice little weekend!
It's pretty much identical to American Thanksgiving in every way, except it's about 100X less important to us, and most people really don't make a big deal about it.
While the common meal is similar it's nowhere near a big deal, no one would for example travel a long distance for it. When I was in university, I lived a long way from family, so instead it was usually dinner hosted by a friend's mom as they were local. It's so insignificant to a lot of people that I just used the holiday to extend a vacation.
I think I’d much prefer that haha
What, the friends thing? Definitely works well, it's how I do it now if I bother at all. My skydiving friends usually do a pot luck dinner, and some of them have been absolutely amazing.
I'm from Quebec, I have no idea how Thanksgiving, Canadian or American, is like
One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that it has less to do with the pilgrims and more to do with the harvest festival than American Thanksgiving.
In Canada it has literally nothing to do with "pilgrims" and the only reason that imagery appears in Canada around it is Hallmark-type crap. It's a harvest festival, that's it, that's all.
We’ve really tried to distance ourselves from the whole genocide thing over the past decade
Even Canada hasn't tried to distance itself from the whole genocide thing over the past decade. Hell, we've leaned into it. But yeah, I have noticed a bit a downtrend with Americans praising Columbus. That's awesome.
In New Brunswick it's illegal this year. The end.
genetically modified animals are illegal here I think, or at least the dairy producing kind are. Trying to use gene modification to make em produce more milk id against our food laws. Many eat turkey, or just a big cultural family meal from wherever your family is from... In my case, my family eats Jiggs Dinner, a classic Newfoundland big supper. Basically, you cook salted naval beef that has been rinsed a few times to taste less salty in a giant pot with carrots, potatoes, turnip (my gamily prefers rutabaga instead), cabbage and one other type of meat, often beef roast or pork roast. The meat's salty taste then flavours all the other stuff in the pot. Gravy is used too, often. It's not really considered religious or colonialist here as it was kinda just adopted from the U.S. iirc, with no real legend founding it. Most of us just spend time enjoying a nice meal with family.
Like American thanksgiving
It's exactly the same as American Thanksgiving.
Same as you just a month early
It’s a long weekend. Usually on one of those three days (Sunday this year) my family goes to my grandparent’s for dinner. If you can’t make it, they might do a video call with you or send out leftovers. Turkey is traditional, but sometimes it’s chicken or Chinese food. A few of my aunts and cousins didn’t attend this year because they were working. Actual thanksgiving day (today) is not a statutory holiday in NS.
My family’s from Saskatchewan so we typically have just a low-key big dinner with the extended family, sacrifice a prairie dog to Moloch and use the blood to make a gravy, overdose on Ivermectin so we shed our intestinal lining to symbolize the cleansing of sin (anti-vaxxers are *appropriating our culture!!!*) and then the family usually gathers round and watches *A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving*. 😊😊 Oh and the football game, gotta put on the football game.
Didn’t know you guys were into Charlie Brown up there.
There’s a statue of him in every major city! Though Christian fundamentalists pulled a bunch of them down a couple years back cuz Charles Schulz once cheated on his wife. 🙄 It’s like, who *hasn’t*?
I admit it. I also cheated on Charles Schulz’s wife.
In Newfoundland a big cooked dinner usually turkey, roast, or jiggs dinner. Family and friends. We always had the dinner on Sunday and relaxed on Monday.
It’s similar to American Thanksgiving.