onefixedstar | Harvest Holiday (Reply)

I was trying to explain the Canadian Thanksgiving to a Ukranian friend last Friday. I wasn't able to come up with any sort of mythology or customs other than eating turkey and visiting family (and the usual harvest stuff). Well, and as was observed in The Globe and Mail recently, dumping your high school boyfriend/girlfriend if you're a first year university student, but that one didn't seem applicable to her. On the whole, it's a pretty customless holiday--we don't even have stories of pilgrims to tell, just the usual thankfulness for the harvest which always seems faintly ridiculous coming from dedicated urban-dwellers who buy their food from the supermarket year-round. I do think mindfulness of the change of the seasons is good thing, but Thanksgiving as we celebrate it rarely dwells on that.

Now having gone on about that, I have to say that my Thanksgiving was lovely. I went up to see my mom and sibs on Sunday, and had the traditional turkey dinner with them, my grandparents, and my aunt and uncle. As is customary, we ate far too much (the late night candy run with my siblings didn't help with that) and I came back feeling far more cheerful than I have for a while (although that could be the turkey and pumpkin pie they sent me back with). Perhaps family and food is reason enough for a holiday.