Hi all!

I just want to wish everyone a Happy thanks Giving. As a new PR I am giving thanks and cooking all my Canadian friends a big turkey with some Britishness's.

-Apple Crumble and Custard
-Paxo Sage and Onion stuffing

Last but not lease................YORKSHIRE PUDDINGS!!!

Have a great holiday everyone.

Roxy

Does anyone actually know what we are celebrating by having Thanksgiving?

Are we supposed to bring food to the elderly like harvest festival in the UK?

I've asked Canadians and they only mention eating Turkey.

it is to be thankfull
thankfull for the harvest, friends family etc. ..... and aparently turkey

Happy Thanksgiving one and all.

We're having friends to stay from Kamloops, South Africans who are coincidentally Murrays, and also relatively recent arrivals.

We're skipping the Pumpkin Pie, and opting for Chocolate Decadance Cake instead....

As for the meaning, it feels very harvest festival-ish here...with a hint of Hallowe'en.

...and/or ham.

We shall also be skipping the pumpkin pie and instead opting for Mrs_P's homemade chocolate éclairs and this year she has also made a "Harvey Wallbanger" cake.

I think I'll skip the turkey and ham and go straight to dessert.

Oh and thanks to the OP and a Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

Don't forget the bread sauce .... nobody here has heard of it, but any Canadian friends we have had try it think it's delicious!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Actually, we're celebrating the return to health of King Edward VII, after a serious illness in 1872, when he still was the Prince of Wales.

But most Canadians don't know that, and conflate it with American Thanksgiving, which is a type of harvest festival.

I didn't know the true origins of Canadian thanksgiving until I did some research for the Wiki article called Holidays and Festivals-Canada.

I've never lived in the UK, am unfamiliar with the harvest festival there, and cannot make comparisons with Canadian Thanksgiving.

As is the case with Christmas, many Canadians invite elderly / lonely / etc. people to their homes for the holiday meal. I often did that when I lived in Calgary. Now that I'm newly arrived in Nanaimo and am on my own, I'm chuffed that a couple whom I've met since I moved here have invited me to their home for Thanksgiving Dinner. I'm one of five newly arrived and/or single people whom they've invited.

Some people also volunteer at food banks, soup kitchens, etc., where poor and homeless people are either given the ingredients for a Thanksgiving meal or are served cooked meals.

And, oh yes, Happy Thanksgiving to all, including roxye3.
x

I asked my canadian girlfriend the same question and she said that it was probably adopted from the USA simply due to proximity. There is no reall, hardcore, tradition of "thanksgiving" during the harvest season apparently. Since canada is made up of so many different nations I guess everyone's cultural background has helped a bit. Most central european countries only know a harvest time and giving thanks during that time, they do not recognise something close to Thaksgiving with the funny turkey thing going on. Only thing we could come up with was King Edward VII returning to health after a serious illness in 1872, but why would a Canadian care about that?

Today's Canadian most likely wouldn't but when the holiday was initially adopted Canada was very much a Commonwealth country and tied quite tightly to mother England's apron strings.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all, wherever you may be and with ever you are sharing it with...
Lorraine G

He recovered from typhoid, the disease that had killed his father. Apparently there was universal relief throughout the UK and the British Empire. He previously had visited Canada, had charmed people here, and was fondly remembered.

Queen Victoria called for a day of prayer and thanksgiving. The Canadian Government of the time responded by declaring a day of prayer and thanksgiving in Canada. Aside from that official act of the Canadian Government, I think it's also possible that the Canadian public in that era felt a greater sense of loyalty towards the Crown than present day Canadians feel. Remember that Ontario and the then province of Nova Scotia (now divided into Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) were heavily influenced by United Empire Loyalists, who had fled the United States during the American War of Independence.

I think that, in reality, Canadian Thanksgiving is the result of aboriginal harvest festivals as well as European harvest festivals, memories of which European settlers brought with them. In addition to that, the United Empire Loyalists brought with them the custom of the turkey dinner, which already had caught hold in the USA.

But the celebration of the Prince of Wales's recovery from typhoid was the first official Thanksgiving celebration after Canadian confederation. The first Canadian Thanksgiving was celebrated in April. Later the holiday was moved to the autumn. After the First World War, Thanksgiving was combined with Armistice Day. But later in the 20th century, Canadian Thanksgiving was made into a distinct holiday of its own, different from Remembrance Day, which is observed on November 11th.

Postscript. I hadn't seen Steve_P's message when I posted this one, but I agree with his observation.
x

Happy thanksgiving to one and all!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!
Yoong

Weird, I did a quick Google as well and kept reading this article

The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an English explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. He did not succeed but he did establish a settlement in Northern America. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now called Newfoundland, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This is considered the first Canadian Thanksgiving. Other settlers arrived and continued these ceremonies. He was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him - Frobisher Bay.

At the same time, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, also held huge feasts of thanks. They even formed 'The Order of Good Cheer' and gladly shared their food with their Indian neighbours.

After the Seven Year's War ended in 1763, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving.

During the American Revolution, Americans who remained loyal to England moved to Canada where they brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada. There are many similarities between the two Thanksgivings such as the cornucopia and the pumpkin pie.