Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!
Happy Thanksgiving, Canadians! Here is how Canada celebrates their big holiday as well as four ways that the Canadian and U.S. Thanksgivings differ.
1. Canadian Thanksgiving is in October—and 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 9, 2023).
Since the beginning of the Thanksgiving holiday, its date has moved several times—from mid-week in April to a Thursday in November—until 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.
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Now, Canadian Thanksgiving lines up with Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the United States, also held on the second Monday in October.
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 Pilgrims’ big meal.
The tradition of Thanksgiving originated with the harvest festival—an autumnal celebration meant to show appreciation for the season’s bountiful harvest. However, Canadian Thanksgiving was initially 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 “thanks-giving,” 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 the Canadian Confederation didn’t happen until April 1872, when the holiday was observed to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales from a severe 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.
3. Thanksgiving Is a Little More Low-Key in Canada
Thanksgiving is one of the biggest holidays of the year in the United States—with huge parades, massive feasts, and football—but 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*, Canadians’ approach to Thanksgiving is a bit more laid back.
(*The exceptions are the Atlantic provinces, where the holiday is an optional day off, and Quebec, where the holiday isn’t as popular overall.)
In Canada, Thanksgiving is a time for families to gather and enjoy a turkey dinner while celebrating the harvest. However, unlike in the United States, relatives tend not to travel as far. This is because the holiday occurs in early October, and the weather is typically mild enough for a Thanksgiving Day hike or vacation. Many Canadians enjoy participating in this tradition before the long winter sets in. The Thanksgiving feast may also occur on Saturday or Sunday since the holiday falls on a Monday.
Although you might expect hockey to replace traditional Thanksgiving Day football, football is part of the Thanksgiving tradition in Canada, too. Each year, the annual Thanksgiving Day Classic doubleheader 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 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 allows Canadians 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. Canadian stores have also started participating in November’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday in recent years. Especially since 2020 and COVID-19, with the surge in online shopping, retailers may seize any opportunity to promote consumer activity around the holidays.
Ultimately, no matter how, when, or where you celebrate it: Happy Thanksgiving!
Learn More
Check out our page on American Thanksgiving, and a list of our favorite Thanksgiving Recipes (and Make-Ahead Thanksgiving Recipes, too)!
Catherine Boeckmann
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America is a continent, recognized by professional geographers as North America and South America. The United States of America is a country on the North American continent as are the countries of Mexico, Canada, Panama, etc.
Some of the article is true. Save for the bit about shopping. Since Canada has very few “Canadian retailers”, Black Friday is forced upon us. I too like a good sale, but there is s only so many TVs, appliances or cars one can buy
The article makes the same mistake so many others make in confusing a "day of thanksgiving" with the holiday "Thanksgiving" day. The latter is an American holiday brought to Canada by Loyalists. It has nothing to do with Frobisher holding a feast of thanksgiving (that happened in April) and all attempts to link the "Thanksgiving" holiday with various days of thanks-giving throughout history are laughably tenuous.
You’re so right. This is what happens when writers fail to do their own original research and instead rely on someone else’s written mistake.
My multiple times grest grandfather William Bradford was the governor of Massachusetts when the first thanksgiving happened. It was no doubt closer to Canadas current date since they were celebrating a successful harvest season.
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
... And you have to be very careful in stating that last paragraph.
Yea! Canada.
Try reading “ Playing fir Pixza.” Set in Italy.
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?! 😉 🇨🇦
Tammie, that's great work of fiction you have there... The PM doesn't turn his back on Indigenous leaders, PM Trudeau is an honorarly member of the BC Haida's, he even has a Haida tattoo.. The current PM also, does not own an ocean front property in BC.
FYI, there were also residential schools in the States and Indigenous people around the world are still suffering under colonialism, and now a rise in RW hate.
The current Canadian govt., is the first to do anything for the Indigenous people in Canada. You also don't understand how settlements are done, based on precedent, of individual levels of damages inflicted...
Here are 6 facts about PM Trudeau's link to BC..
https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/6-ways-justin-trudeau-is-linked-to-british-columbia_n_8342278
