BristolUK

Not here they don't. Just pharmacies open. The Zoo and some tourist attractions were open with most transit stopped.

I'm retired but I still view holidays and weekends as days I don't have to work

Souvy

My day wasn't very royal. I spent it working on a room conversion (split) and hacking a large IKEA chest of drawers into two smaller ones.

We had homemade Coquilles St-Jacques for dinner. King Wingnut III probably didn't.

Rete

Small sample set is my experience as well. It is not about just a day off because the majority of women do the cooking for Thanksgiving so a day off isn't really off when you are tied to the kitchen.

My sister-in-law always had a large gathering of children, grandchildren, sister and brother and their spouses to her home. The last time we were over 20 people at the dining room table. One nephew came to Kanawake, Quebec from Toronto for the holiday. Her daughter, son-in-law, grandson and his spouse and child came down from Gateau. My husband and I drove up from New York City.

I know in my little sphere of the world, Thanksgiving ranks as holiday #1 while Christmas is perhaps #2 and New Year's Eve/Day is at the bottom of list.

Souvy

Gateau

sharkus

We did Canadian thanksgiving down in buffalo with my girlfriends family. I'd not seen them since Christmas, so it was nice to catch up, plus eat far too much.

abner

Probably just a family circumstance thing, then.

Several branches of the Canadian family, including Mum's, used to own or borrow cottages in the same area of Northern Ontario, towards the end of August when the weather was still good, and the mosquitoes and blackflies had mostly died off for the season. And there'd be a big set-piece family gathering (not just ours, but that of many others) on the weekend prior to Labour Day, to mark the end of summer, and the pending closing up of the cottages. (They weren't winterized back then, except for my aunt's place.)

We kids would have swimming and diving competitions, some of which were surprisingly competitive in retrospect (my sister ended up on a university water polo team, and a couple of her friends made the Canadian Olympic squad for some individual swim specialties, though not in the end to a medal level -- meanwhile, I nearly broke my neck one year on the diving board...). The kids played, and sometimes surreptitiously made out, and the adults drank and barbequed.

Fantastic summers overall, til my Dad's career took over, and moved us further afield.

***
In contrast, we never took much notice of Thanksgiving. It was a day off from school, and we'd generally have a turkey dinner, but just with immediate family.

The next big family gathering would be Christmas, and that was always with one of the Canadian-settled branches of Dad's family, usually in Ottawa.
***

I've had a lot of issues with my old man over the years; he has been a tough man to appreciate, if not to love, and he spent a lot of years 'on the road' while my sister and I were growing up.

But he always did come through with significant annual family traditions and celebrations, whatever else was going on.

Canadian Thanksgiving just wasn't one of those, and as I think about it, there would have been no such tradition in his own upbringing for him to maintain.

BristolUK

Monday.
We have the biggest Turkey in years. 17 pounds.

We'll be doing the same as last year, eat some and freeze the rest, reheating it for American Thanksgiving. Results for both days were really good. The second time came out like it was just cooked.

dbd33

I have some children in town. One lives in Switzerland and Italy, the other in Vancouver. They both miss being in places where there are black people and so want to go out for jerk food.

Rete

Thanks for this advice. If the grandkids don't come for the American Thanksgiving, I will do the same as you. Only we never have turkey on Christmas. Christmas is a roast beef and Christmas Eve is Pierogi and either mushroom soup or potato soup for a meatless dinner. New Year's Day is always pork.

BristolUK

We don't either. Now.
In England, for me, it was always Turkey. The Canadian family I married into did their Quebec thing (pies and ragout, which never seemed particularly special to me) but they also did it on Christmas Eve.
And they always thought Turkey was dry.

When I showed them it didn't have to be dry - and how nice it was with all the trimmings - they fell in love with it.
Initially we did their thing Christmas Eve and my thing Christmas Day but all that cooking, preparation and storage got a bit difficult all at the same time so we moved theirs to Easter.

Now we've moved the Turkey to Easter and both Thanksgivings for no other reason than we get to eat it three times a year.

Their thing is back to Christmas - but still on Eve - while Christmas Day varies but we still aim for something of a treat.

BTW - the turkey that I saved was breast, sliced quite thickly, wrapped tightly in foil and then frozen. I decided it would freeze better that way - and store more easily than a chunk of bird.