Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Thanksgiving


Thanksgiving

Celebrated on the second Monday of October, Thanksgiving is a cultural holiday held in honor of a successful harvest. In Canadian history, the origin of Thanksgiving originated from an English explorer named Martin Frobisher who first came to Canada in search of the northern passage. While he did not succeed in finding the Spice Islands he did however form a settlement in North America. 1578, in what is now known as Newfoundland, he held a ceremony to celebrate the successful long journey. This ceremony is considered to be the first Thanksgiving in Canada. Over time more settlers arrived and they took it upon themselves to keep up the tradition. Soon the festival became less of surviving the journey and more of celebrating the bountiful amount of food that was presented to them each harvest. This is how Thanksgiving started in Canada.

I generally don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Okay I don’t celebrate it at all. Its cause I don’t want to, its just that growing up I never really heard about Thanksgiving until I moved to Canada. And even then it wasn’t much of a big deal to me until I moved to B.C. South Africa doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving and Halloween is nonexistent. Valentine Day is very vague and the only holiday I can really remember is Christmas. And even then it was more of receiving presents instead of the whole “Santa is coming!” charade. I didn’t even know who Santa was and my only information on him was the very few Christmas shows that came during the winter months but even that was rarely in English. No, I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. But I do celebrate the extra day off by ceremoniously sleeping, not doing anything, pigging out on candy and junk and of course playing games all day. I sometimes read but I mostly draw. Other than that I just pretty much stay inside the whole day unless we plan to go to the movies or something. This Thanksgiving I didn’t do that but instead I spent the day celebrating my father’s birthday. We bought him some gifts and then ended up returning it all and buying him new ones. It was fun. We made ribs which caught on fire and ended up eating Nandos Chicken instead. Afterwards we watched some movies before ending in for the night. Yep just pretty much your basic weekend.

Sources used for Thanksgiving references:
1. http://www.twilightbridge.com/hobbies/festivals/thanksgiving/canada/
2. http://www.kidzworld.com/article/2614-canadian-thanksgiving

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