It’s Thanksgiving Saturday night and I am back in the same debate I have every Thanksgiving. Why is this not a bigger thing in Canada? I know for some families, they take full advantage of the holiday and make sure that they get together to spend time. Many others will meet up with friends and celebrate the beginning of fall and enjoy time together. But for many others, this is just another long weekend and a reason to be home from work or school. Our comrades to the south think we are crazy.
To Americans, their November Thanksgiving holiday is as big as Christmas. The Thursday holiday is an un-missable event for a family, one that seeing millions of travellers partake in the busiest travel day of the year. The Christmas shopping season kicks off the following day with Black Friday and family spend hours that weekend watching College and NFL football games. Even Canadians like the US holiday more than our version. The Thursday of football is a pseudo day off for us and we love nothing more than a good stampede at the US shopping malls where cross-border shopping is available. But what about our holiday?
Maybe we need something more traditional to be associated with the weekend. The CFL tries to add the football element for fans. Shopping malls are usually full of people looking for something to fill the time. I would venture to guess that Canadians are as patriotic about family and country as Americans are. So what gives?
My feeling is that the timing is just wrong. The holiday is kind of lost somewhere in the tailing end of summer and the spooky setup of Halloween. There is nothing in the stores to remind us of its importance and nothing that it kicks off for us in terms of another season. It’s just lost in the malaise of the turning leaves and the promise that winter is surely coming to this country. There really is nothing else but Thanksgiving to enjoy and therein lies the failing. Canadians just can’t enjoy it for what it is, a family event.
Forget about the rest of the stuff. Find your friends and family and be with them this weekend. Enjoy the time and take a deep, cool breath of the hint of winter in the air. Don’t worry about the other things that cloud our everyday lives including what are we supposed to do next week. Simply be thankful for what you have in your life today and those who share it with you. Take a minute to reflect on those that are closest to you and be thankful for what they provide to you daily. Be thankful for what you have and what you don’t have. Most of all, just enjoy the break from the frenetic, challenging lives we all hold.
Leave the shopping until December.
Happy Thanksgiving 403.
Marco