[Under Development]
Today was American Thanksgiving Day. I received many greetings, while at the same time posting a notice on our QQ social media that the day was not celebrated here in Canada as Thanksgiving Day. Our celebration occurred about five weeks earlier.
Nevertheless, both the US and Canada do celebrate Thanksgiving for much the same reasons.
But the specific question from a student in Changchun came to me like this: Today is Thanksgiving day. But at noon, I saw the message you sent. You told us that in Canada the Thanksgiving Day is in October.
When I saw 《Friends》, Joey ate turkey on Thanksgiving day. Actually, eating turkey is all I know about Thanksgiving Day.
Prof Ron, can you tell me what you are doing other than eating turkey on Thanksgiving Day?
My response…
First, American Thanksgiving is a bigger event than is Canadian Thanksgiving. Our biggest holiday time and celebration is at Christmas. At Thanksgiving, we have just a one day holiday (Monday) to give us a three-day weekend. (Americans, for their Thanksgiving, have four days: Thursday through Sunday.)
Thanksgiving for us as a Canadian family is mostly just family time. Generally, as it may be possible, families gather… often travelling from other cities or towns. And when we do get together, as with special celebrations all around the world, we eat!!!
A turkey is a big bird. We cook a turkey in an oven. (Commonly, Chinese people do not have ovens in their homes. I should find some photos of our kinds of stoves to show you!!)
By cooking a big turkey, and preparing many other foods (potatoes, vegetables, deserts), a family can sometimes feed 8 or 10 people or even more if they are able to all gather in one house for the turkey dinner.
We always wish to have a warm sunny day for our Thanksgiving weekend. If we are lucky with the weather, then there are other things we can do… such as go to our lovely lake in our city and walk and talk with family members.
If people are wealthy and have a cottage at some small lake somewhere, the family may gather there, and the men (at least) may go fishing.
If people enjoy such sports as golfing (we have more golf courses in Saskatchewan per population than anywhere else in the world), they will try to do that on this weekend.
In our city, most people are bit crazy about football (Canadian football is similar to American football… which is not anything like soccer), and there is always a football game sometime on the weekend. So lots and lots of people dress in their green jerseys (colors for Saskatchewan Roughriders) and go there.
But, for most families, it is mostly a time for children and grandchildren to all gather with parents/grandparents and enjoy family time together.
On Sunday, many people will also go to church. Fewer numbers than a generation ago (since are all so much richer now and think we can control our lives and world!!).
The origins of Thanksgiving were related to times when we were much poorer, and were much more thankful to God for such things as a a good harvest. We took more time to stop and think about all the good things that we enjoy through the year. So, traditionally, on the Sunday, all the family would go to church were the minister/pastor/teacher would read special parts of the Bible that talks about being thankful, and he would talk, reminding everyone that “all things come from God for our enjoyment” and we must care for such things and share the good things with one another.
In the past, many church groups would also have a big dinner at which many dozens or hundreds of people would come together and eat. It was commonly called a Fowl Supper (where the word ‘fowl’ is the more general term for any kind of bird that we might eat: chicken, duck, turkey). This was always very popular in the rural areas, but not so popular now in the cities. And the the Fowl Supper events did not always happen on the three-day weekend, but would often happen a week or two earlier, or even a short time later than the official holiday date.
OK… that is about all I can tell you about Thanksgiving celebrations. Specific traditions are not strong, and in this part of the world, people have come to Canada and America from other parts of the world, so different families will celebrate this weekend in different ways.
For our family, we enjoyed a Sunday Dinner with the one daughter and her family that live here in Regina. On the Monday, we invited two Chinese families from our Saturday English Classes to join us in our home for a Thanksgiving Dinner. They very much enjoyed it, and we were thankful for their company and their friendship.