Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!
In the United States, Thanksgiving is one of the biggest holidays of the year. But did you know that Canada celebrates Thanksgiving, too? Here are a few of the key differences between American and Canadian Thanksgiving!
4 Ways Canadian Thanksgiving Differs From American Thanksgiving
Canadian Thanksgiving and American Thanksgiving may look similar at first glance, but there are a few things that set these two fall festivities apart.
1. Canadian Thanksgiving is in Octoberāand on a Monday
That’s right! Canadian Thanksgiving happens a full month and a half before American Thanksgiving, on the second Monday in October (Monday, October 10, 2022).
Since the beginning of the Thanksgiving holiday, its date has moved several timesāfrom mid-week in April to a Thursday in Novemberāuntil 1957, when the Canadian government officially declared that Thanksgiving would occur on the second Monday in October. This ensured that Thanksgiving and another Canadian holiday, Remembrance Day (November 11), would no longer overlap.
Today, Canadian Thanksgiving lines up with Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoplesā Day in the United States, which are also held on the second Monday in October.
A serene autumn morning in Vancouver.
2. American and Canadian Thanksgiving Have Different (But Similar) Origins
Everyone seems to know the story of the first American Thanksgiving in 1621, but do you know how Canadian Thanksgiving came about? In fact, the first Canadian Thanksgiving may have even pre-dated the Pilgrimsā big meal.
The tradition of Thanksgiving originated with the harvest festivalāan autumnal celebration meant to show appreciation for the bountiful harvest of the season. However, Canadian Thanksgiving was originally less about celebrating the harvest and more about thanking God for keeping early explorers safe as they ventured into the New World.
In that sense of āthanks-giving,ā the earliest report of such a dinner dates back to 1578, when English explorer Martin Frobisher and his crew held a special meal to thank God for granting them safe passage through northern North America, into what is today the Canadian Territory of Nunavut.
The first Thanksgiving after Canadian Confederation didn’t happen until April 1872, when the holiday was observed to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales from a serious illness.
Today, the tradition of Thanksgiving has come full circle, and it’s primarily seen as a time to gather the family, mark the start of autumn, and celebrate the harvest and good food of the season.
Photo by Muskoka Stock Photos/Shutterstock.
3. Thanksgiving Is a Little More Low Key in Canada
Thanksgiving is one of the biggest holidays of the year in the United Statesāwith huge parades, massive feasts, and footballābut it’s decidedly lower key in Canada. Although the holiday is still widely celebrated in Canada and is a statutory holiday in most of the country*, Canadiansā approach to Thanksgiving is a bit more laid back.
(*The exceptions are the Atlantic provinces, where the holiday is an optional day off, and in Quebec, where the holiday isn’t as popular overall.)
Thanksgiving in Canada involves families coming together to eat turkey and celebrate the harvest, but relatives don’t tend to travel as far across the country like they might in the United States. And because the holiday takes place in early October, the weather is usually still suitable for a Thanksgiving Day hike or vacationāa tradition that many Canadians readily take part in ahead of the long winter. Plus, because the holiday falls on a Monday, the Thanksgiving feast may instead take place on Saturday or Sunday.
Although you might expect hockey to take the place of traditional Thanksgiving Day football, football is part of Thanksgiving tradition in Canada, too. Each year, the annual Thanksgiving Day Classic double header is broadcast nationwide, wherein four teams from the CFL (Canadian Football League) play for Thanksgiving glory!
4. There’s No Huge Post-Thanksgiving Shopping Craze
Love them or hate them, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become a big part of the Thanksgiving season in the United States. In Canada, however, there’s no real post-Thanksgiving shopping craze, since Christmas is still so far off. This gives Canadians the chance to focus purely on celebrating the beauty of early October and the harvest!
That being said, no one can resist a good sale for long: in recent years, Canadian stores have started to participate in November’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday, too. Especially since 2020, with the surge in online shopping, retailers may seize any opportunity to promote consumer activity around the holidays.
In the end, no matter how, when, or where you celebrate it: Happy Thanksgiving!
Learn More
Check out our page on American Thanksgiving, as well as a list of our favorite Thanksgiving Recipes (and Make-Ahead Thanksgiving Recipes, too)!
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My husband just informed me that the Canadian football field is 20 yards longer and it's wider, too. I never knew any other country had a football league! As an American who is not in the least interested in football (I may as well be living in Canada...or Europe!), I don't know why I find this fascinating. LOL. But it was interesting to learn about Canada and their Thanksgiving holiday. Very nice. On a side note, I read the comments about 'Indigenous Day' and that makes me sad. Why couldn't we have kept Columbus Day and made a day just for the Native Americans? It could be a day in which the Native Americans tribes could jointly have picked out; instead, it was our inane and foolish government entity that made that stupid decision. (Sorry, done with the ranting now).
The first American Style football game was played between Montreal's McGill University and the Harvard University in Cambridge Mass. on May 15, 1874
The rules of the Canadian game included an oval ball and the ability to run while carrying the ball. Until then Harvard played the game with a round ball and a player couldn't run with the ball unless being chased. Harvard won the game 3 - 0
Shortly thereafter, Harvard standardized the rules for the game called "American Football" which became part of their athletic program. Their main rival became Yale University, but Harvard dominate the game for years because they had being playing the game for much longer.
Canadian football was being played many years before McGill taught Harvard the game. Some of the Canadian universities who were playing the game included, McGill, University of Toronto and the University of Hamilton.
Today the Canadian game is still played on a bigger field, with more players and play with bigger balls.
Merci
The first American Style football game was played between Montreal's McGill University and the Harvard University in Cambridge Mass. on May 15, 1874
The rules of the Canadian game included an oval ball and the ability to run while carrying the ball. Until then Harvard played the game with a round ball and a player couldn't run with the ball unless being chased. Harvard won the game 3 - 0
Shortly thereafter, Harvard standardized the rules for the game called "American Football" which became part of their athletic program. Their main rival became Yale University, but Harvard dominate the game for years because they had being playing the game for much longer.
Canadian football was being played many years before McGill taught Harvard the game. Some of the Canadian universities who were playing the game included, McGill, University of Toronto and the University of Hamilton.
Today the Canadian game is still played on a bigger field, with more players and play with bigger balls.
Merci
I'm Canadian and have a lot of family members who live in the US. I've been to 42 states. In my travels I've been surprised by the amount of Americans lack of knowledge about their northern neighbours so don't feel bad. I believe at least a couple of factors can be attributed. While I don't watch the mainstream news anymore, I used to see a big difference between American news vs Canadian news. The American news only reported on stories about the US or American's outside of the US. Canadian news reported on international news and politics as well as sports. My cousins moved to California when they were enrolling into Grades 7, 9 and 11. All three of them said they were only taught American history and geography and basically nothing about the rest of the world. Here in Canada it's the opposite to a fault as our students are taught more about the history of other countries than our own country.
We don't have a holiday similar to your Columbus Day. We have Canada Day (previously called Dominion Day) on July 1 to celebrate the agreement of our three British colonies to join together to become Canada. If you enjoy history look up the war of 1812 when "Canada" burned the White House.
We also have Victoria Day in May, one week before your Memorial Day although most people just call it "May long" It was originally started to celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday. Instead of changing the date with each reining Monarch it's always celebrated the end of May.
This year on September 30 was our very first "Truth and Reconciliation Day" for Canada's Indigenous people. Canada made international news this past spring when hundreds of unmarked graves were located near various Residential Schools here in Western Canada. Residential schools operated in Canada from the 1870's-1996. At first they were opened simply so Indigenous children could learn to read and write. Later on they were built across Canada and parents were ordered to send their children hundreds of miles away to these schools where they were forced to cut off their hair, wear different clothing, prohibited from speaking their own languages, forced to practice a different religion as well as prohibited from even talking to their own siblings. Many of these children were beaten, sexually abused, overworked, underfed, and even murdered etc. When they died from illness or disease the only way the parents could get their children's body back home for burial was if they paid for it to be shipped by train. Most of them couldn't afford it so their children were buried in the school graveyard. While these graves were marked at one time, the records that were kept have mostly been lost or destroyed. Our governments, especially the Liberals lead by Pierre Elliott Trudeau who was Prime Minister from 1968-1984. While previously the Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian and United churches helped run these schools they were solely ran by the government after 1968.
So while Justin Trudeau, Pierre's son, would like everyone to think he's a hero for passing this day of observance through, in reality he's very disingenuous. Instead of attending even one of the three different ceremonies in British Columbia where he was invited by their Chiefs, he just flew right over them in his private jet from Ottawa on his way to his $4.5 million ocean front home on Vancouver Island where he went surfing for the day. See how that works? The government makes a "holiday" for these people because of 125 years of abuse, rapes, murders, crimes and injustices that these people faced from the government and the Prime Minister doesn't even have the grace to even reply to their invitations to the ceremonies of the very first Day of Truth and Reconciliation! The only people in Canada who received a paid day off were federal employees.
A couple of weeks later there was a news conference where one of the Chiefs confronted him and told him how disappointed and sad her and her people were that he didn't respond to their invitations. He arrogantly looked in the opposite direction during her speech then as he always does after he gets caught, gave a dramatic insincere "apology"
https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/national-day-truth-reconciliation.html
We do indeed have football. It's called the CFL. After the playoffs the winner from the Western division plays against the winner of the Eastern division for the Grey Cup. Each year the game takes place in a pre-determined city. This year it will be in Hamilton, Ontario on December 12. Many years the Grey Cup's been played in blizzards or in temperatures as low as -40 F. Many of the players are from the US. I'm with you on football! LoL. They seem to do more standing around than playing. I prefer hockey as probably 80%+ of other Canadians. I hope you've enjoyed my little history lesson as much as I enjoyed writing it eh?! š šØš¦
Indigenous Day celebrates the native american people that were here long before the europeans came and before they were forced from there land and way of life. Then brutally murdered or infested with disease. Columbus day just celebrated a drunk rapest lunatic that was banned from his home country, then convinced another country to fund his exploration and exploitation of new lands. Colombus didnt even discover north america, He rediscovered the caribean islands which were already occupied. then he set up horrendace slave, rape, spice and liquor trades between the islands, africa and europe. Why do we even pretend to care about him and continue to teach fake stories in the american school systems? Plymouth rock? he never came anywhere near new england, so why pretend he discovered or settled here?
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