Happy Holidays

Happy Thanksgiving to anyone that might happen by from Canada. I always forget until well after this holiday is over that you celebrate this holiday over a month sooner than we do here in the states.

I looked around a little and found a nice picture and a little bit about the holiday. Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks at the conclusion of the harvest season. Thanksgiving is a statutory holiday, except in New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. A day of general thanks for one's blessings.


This is from Wikipedia

Traditional celebration

In Canada, Thanksgiving is a three-day weekend (although some provinces observe a four day weekend, Friday–Monday). Traditional Thanksgiving meals prominently feature turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes, though Canada's multicultural heritage has seen many families infuse this traditional meal with elements of their traditional ethnic foods.

As a liturgical festival, the Canadian Thanksgiving corresponds to the European harvest festival, during which churches are adorned with cornucopias, pumpkins, corn, wheat sheaves and other harvest bounty. English and other European harvest hymns are customarily sung on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, along with scriptural lections derived from biblical stories relating to the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.

While the actual Thanksgiving holiday occurs on a Monday, Canadian families might eat their Thanksgiving meal on any day of the three day weekend. The holiday can also be a time for weekend getaways for couples to observe the autumn leaves, spend one last weekend at their summer homes, or participate in various outdoor activities such as hiking, fishing and hunting.

History of Thanksgiving in Canada

The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an English explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been futilely attempting to find a northern passage to the Orient. He did, however, establish a settlement in Canada. In the year 1578, Frobisher held a formal ceremony in what is now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This event is widely considered to be the first Canadian Thanksgiving, and the first official Thanksgiving to occur in North America. More settlers arrived and continued the ceremonial tradition initiated by Frobisher, who was eventually knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him — Frobisher Bay now known as Iqaluit.

It should be noted that the 1578 ceremony was not the first Thanksgiving as defined by First Nations tradition. Long before the time of Martin Frobisher, it was traditional in many First Nations cultures to offer an official giving of thanks during autumnal gatherings. In Haudenosaunee culture, Thanksgiving is a prayer recited to honor "the three sisters" (i.e., beans, corn, and squash) during the fall harvest.

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COLUMBUS DAY


Starting in 1971 the United States celebrates Columbus Day on the same day that Canada celebrates Thanksgiving. The actual day is October 12, this coming Friday but it was officially changed to be observed as the second Monday in October. I have a hard time forgetting that day as it also happens to be my Dad’s birthday. No the picture above is not my Dad, it is Christopher Columbus.


Columbus Day is suppose to be a celebration of Columbus discovering the Americas although others from the east had already been here. There is a lot of controversy over Columbus Day. The following was lifted from wikipedia

Opposition to Columbus Day


Opposition to the holiday cites the fact that Columbus and many of the conquistador followers treated the American Indians with great cruelty. Columbus directly brought about the demise of many Taino (Arawak) Indians on the island of Hispaniola, and the arrival of the Europeans indirectly slew many indigenous peoples by bringing diseases previously unknown in the New World. An estimated 85% of the Native American population was wiped out within 150 years of Columbus's arrival in America, due largely to diseases such as smallpox, which were both accidentally and deliberately spread among Native American populations. Additionally, war and the seizing of land and material wealth by European colonists also contributed to the decline of the indigenous populations in American.

Columbus Day is not celebrated in the state of Minnesota. However, some city offices in Minneapolis were closed in 2006, as well as libraries across the Twin Cities. In the state of South Dakota, the day is officially a state holiday known as "Native American Day", not Columbus Day. Columbus Day is not a legal holiday in Nevada, but it is a day of observance. Schools and state, city and county government offices are open for business on Columbus Day.

In the summer of 1990, 350 Native Americans, representatives from all over the hemisphere, met in Quito, Ecuador, at the first intercontinental gathering of indigenous people in the Americas, to mobilize against the quincentennial celebration of Columbus Day. The following summer, in Davis, California, over a hundred Native Americans gathered for a follow-up meeting to the Quito conference. They declared October 12th, 1992, International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People.

The largest ecumenical body in the United States, the National Council of Churches, called on Christians to refrain from celebrating the Columbus quincentennial, saying, "What represented newness of freedom, hope, and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others."

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Isn’t this fun. I actually learned a little gathering this all up. Well happy celebrations to any out there that are celebrating. Gee, I was born less than a mile away from Canada on Canada Day. That should mean I am entitled to celebrate Thanksgiving too, shouldn’t it? I best start cooking! Actually maybe I will get a small turkey and toss it in my crock pot. They turn out so good when you let them cook all day.

Editors Note: I forgot, Monday is also Manny's Birthday. Happy Birthday Manny. Glad you are still with us to celebrate another year of living. Now lets light up those candles and get this party started! I found this birthday cake out there. Not your traditional cake but it goes well with the Canadian Thanksgiving, don't you think?