Text and Images by Wendy Bullen Stephenson
Thanksgiving is a popular celebration marking the
time when farmers have brought in the harvest from the fields and finally have
the leisure to rest and appreciate the “fruit of their labour.” This holiday is
held on the second Monday of October as the air is becoming crisp and some of
the leaves are turning red. In Vancouver it marks the beginning of autumn and
the end of summer if that has not already become obvious. While Vancouver often
has beautiful “Indian summers,” residents particularly appreciated this year’s
extended season on Thanksgiving weekend.
International homestay students should note that
Canadian Thanksgiving is different than American Thanksgiving, which comes six
weeks later as a result of the longer growing period south of the border. The
American holiday is held on the fourth Thursday of November, and it ushers in
the beginning of the American, month-long Christmas season, which ends on Christmas
Day. (Another difference between Canada and the United States: The Canadian
Christmas season starts later but continues though New Year’s Day.)
For the majority of middle-class Canadians,
Thanksgiving is one of the most enjoyable family holidays of the year because
it features delicious food and the joy of getting together as family without a
lot of stress.
Because turkeys of less than ten or twelve pounds
are rarely available, there are usualluy lots of leftovers from Thanksgiving
dinner. This depends on the number of relatives and friends that are guests at
the Thanksgiving dinner. But the next day one can usually count on a complete,
reheated second dinner with a taste of everything that was on the original
menu. Subsequent meals include hot turkey sandwiches (turkey and gravy on
toast), turkey stew, and turkey soup.
Because chickens are smaller, a few people eat a
whole, baked chicken instead of turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. But the fact
that some vegetarians eat tofu “poultry,” suggests how important turkey is to
the concept of Thanksgiving.
Some Canadians choose to celebrate on Sunday
rather than Monday of the long weekend so that they have a day to “recover”
from preparing the dinner before returning to work on Tuesday. In photographing
at Vancouver’s Kitsilano Beach on Thanksgiving Monday, I could see that many
people were not home cooking but were enjoying having Monday off as a day to
slow down.
People relax on Thanksgiving Monday 2012 in Vancouver where extended summer is evident in the still- brown grass.
Perhaps these volleyball players and others on the beach will be guests at a Thanksgiving dinner later in the day.
As these beach
photographs and the opening images show, Canadian Thanksgiving is definitely is
not associated with Christmas!
Traditionally, salad can be a simple green one or
an interesting variation such as this one featuring antique tomatoes and grated
white and purple beet.
Some of my homestay
students have never had a whole turkey cooked at home. This is because turkeys
are not common in their culture or they don’t have ovens that are large enough.
The process, therefore, has been fascinating to these students. One of my
homestay students took this photograph of the turkey coming out of the oven.
Many Thanksgiving dinners later, I have
never
managed to update this photograph of a turkey because, always being in a panic
to get everything on the table while still hot, I forget about stopping to get
out my camera.
Photograph of turkey courtesy of Gabriela Hauser, Switzerland
