Premature Thanksgiving greetings to all

I always thought Canadian Thanksgiving was a kind of dorky, passionless, half-hearted holiday. In that, it seemed to be very Canadian in its essence; sorta polite and unassuming.

Furthermore, I didn’t quite understand ‘why’ we had it. When I was in school they would always trot out all the Pilgrim Fathers nonsense, and the white guys and Indians sitting down and gnawing on the bird together, and whatever basic trappings have come to be associated with Thanksgiving.

Wait a minute, I thought, even as early as second or third grade, we didn’t even have Pilgrim Fathers here, we had stuff like couriers de bois and other Gallic stuff that didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense to a kid on the west coast where there was never a plethora of couriers de anything.

I became suspicious about Thanksgiving. It was some kind of a sham Thanksgiving – a lesser Canadian version that was tucked way back in October, rather than late in November like the US version. And, in the US they really did have Pilgrim Fathers and Pocahontas and all that stuff.

And Canadian Thanksgiving wasn’t all that big a deal. We got a holiday from school, and that was a good thing. And we had a turkey. And … that was about it. Halloween looming on the horizon was much more notable.

Later I found out how wrong I had been about the whole thing. I came to the same sort of realization about a couple of marriages, but that is an entirely other matter. Anyway, all my thoughts about Canadian Thanksgiving were egregious misconceptions for which I, as a one-time history teacher, should be ashamed. I only excuse myself in this regard in that I was never a teacher of Canadian history. Just too many couriers de bois in my opinion. In fact I still cringe a bit when I pass a Radisson Hotel.

Anyway, not only is Canadian Thanksgiving a unique festivity about which we should always be proud, even if we’re not, but we should revel in the fact that we ‘invented’ Thanksgiving. US T/giving is just a pallid imitation of something ‘we’ started.

Well, actually ‘we’ didn’t, it was a Brit explorer named Martin Frobisher, who held a ceremony in Newfoundland to give thanks for the survival of himself and his crew for a long arctic journey way back in 1578. Of course, nitpickers could raise the point that our Thanksgiving isn’t really Canadian at all, it is Newfie. That’s because Newfoundland didn’t become part of Canada until 1949. But, that is a quibbling point.

So, the American Thanksgiving (with all that Pilgrim Fathers stuff) didn’t happen until 1621 – that’s practically last week when compared with Marty’s Thanksgiving feast of salt pork, cod tongues and ‘screech.’ There is, however, little truth to the rumor that I’s the B’y was once earmarked as the official Thanksgiving song.

Anyway, it was a long time of passage between the earliest Thanksgiving and its declaration as an official holiday in Canada. In 1879 Parliament declared November 6th to be the day. And then they changed it to October, and then they changed it back to November, and finally in 1957 the 2nd Monday in October was deemed to be the full and righteous day forevermore.

American Thanksgiving was formally established as the fourth Thursday in November back in 1941. So, I guess in the annals of official recognition, the US trumped us.

But, we started it. We did. We did.

But, I still think it’s sort of a dorky holiday, and the only good way to eat turkey is in a sandwich – on white bread, with stuffing and mayonnaise.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!