American and Canadian thanksgiving compared

[Capsicum]

It's kind of striking how much a bigger deal Thanksgiving is in the US vs. Canada.

https://newrepublic.com/article/1246...ampaign=buffer

From the article:

"Thanksgiving in Canada is a relaxing, lazy holiday, not the ordeal of overheated consumption and forced family togetherness that seems to be the case for our unfortunate neighbors to the south."

"Despite the transformations of World War I, Canadian Thanksgiving never really completely lost its origins in Protestantism. To this day, Thanksgiving still has a WASPish tone in Canada and is less likely to be celebrated by religious and ethnic minorities. In the United States, Thanksgiving is a time for a divided nation to argue, in Canada for a divided nation to avoid fighting."

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

"Thanksgiving in Canada is a relaxing, lazy holiday, not the ordeal of overheated consumption and forced family togetherness that seems to be the case for our unfortunate neighbors to the south."
"

Sentences like this, when written by Canadians about Americans, make me cringe.

There is no comments section below the article but if there was I am sure a bunch of people would be telling him to fuck off.

[SignalHillHiker]

Sounds like he's only experienced Thanksgiving in Southern Ontario and an American Wal-Mart.

What does WASPy even mean?

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Sounds like he's only experienced Thanksgiving in Southern Ontario and an American Wal-Mart.

What does WASPy even mean?

Please, it's super chill in Ontario. It's our last long weekend of the year with sometimes warm weather. If you don't live in the city it's a weekend of fall colours eating turkey with Halloween on your mind. Nothing like what happens south of us. To be fair if we had Thanksgiving this close to Christmas it might be a shitshow of binge eating and fighting for a flat screen tv. It's not. In Canada, all of it, that weekend marks the end of warm weather harvest and family. I've never experienced an American style Black Friday commercial money spending Thanksgiving in Ontario. Just the typical east to west coast family friends food and fall colours.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Please, it's super chill in Ontario. It's our last long weekend of the year with sometimes warm weather. If you don't live in the city it's a weekend of fall colours eating turkey with Halloween on your mind. Nothing like what happens south of us. To be fair if we had Thanksgiving this close to Christmas it might be a shitshow of binge eating and fighting for a flat screen tv. It's not. In Canada, all of it, that weekend marks the end of warm weather harvest and family. I've never experienced an American style Black Friday commercial money spending Thanksgiving in Ontario. Just the typical east to west coast family friends food and fall colours.

There were absolutely no fall colours to view this thanksgiving here in Windsor this year though. Everything was still summer green, usually there is a hint of colour, but not this year.
But yeah, Thanksgiving is super chill in this area.

[esquire]

Thanksgiving in Canada feels a bit more like a regular long weekend, as opposed to the US where it has kind of exalted status. I've always had a family get together on either the Sunday or the Monday, but the whole thing feels like less of a big deal than what Americans do.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Sentences like this, when written by Canadians about Americans, make me cringe.

There is no comments section below the article but if there was I am sure a bunch of people would be telling him to fuck off.

It's Jeet Heer, that line was almost certainly tongue in cheek based on what's been making headlines regarding Thanksgiving in the US recently. The entire article is, really. He's veering on Extremely Online so the jokes don't always resonate outside of twitter.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

In the United States, Thanksgiving is a time for a divided nation to argue, in Canada for a divided nation to avoid fighting."

Ignoring the reference to Thanksgiving, this line perfectly encapsulates the basic difference between Canadian and American character.

[matt602]

If there's anything Canadians spend most of their time doing, it's trying to prove how different we are from Americans. What a waste of time.

[dc_denizen]

Hmm.

[lubicon]

Numbers I heard this morning was an estimated 50 million Americans travelled for Thanksgiving. That's roughly 15% of the population. That would equate to over 5 million Canadians travelling if we were on the same scale as them. I've never seen estimates for Canada but I have to think it would be nowhere near that high. IIRC the definition used for travel was people going more than 50 miles for Thanksgiving which seems like a pretty small number.

[esquire]

^ 50 miles seems like a number designed to isolate intercity trips.

Based on the cultural signposts like movies, literature, etc., it does seem that in the US, Thanksgiving is THE holiday for far flung families to get together. Maybe not quite on the same level as Chinese new year in the PRC, but broadly similar.

[Acajack]

I've also had the impression that Thanksgiving might be bigger than Christmas in the U.S., though I can't speak with that much authority on this.

One of the reasons might be that it's more of a palatable fit for the growing number of non-Christian Americans.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I've also had the impression that Thanksgiving might be bigger than Christmas in the U.S., though I can't speak with that much authority on this.

One of the reasons might be that it's more of a palatable fit for the growing number of non-Christian Americans.

There's also comes at a better time of year. The start of October is pretty ho hum. It's the last weeks of short sleeves to many Canadians and the time to close up cabins and cottages for the winter season. The end of November is just before the Christmas party season that wraps up around the 16th depending on the weekly schedule of that year.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I've also had the impression that Thanksgiving might be bigger than Christmas in the U.S., though I can't speak with that much authority on this.

It's feeling like it's starting to trend that way at least. It actually came as quite a surprise to me, the first time I lived in the US as a Canadian.

Originally Posted by Acajack

One of the reasons might be that it's more of a palatable fit for the growing number of non-Christian Americans.

But isn't the relative number of non-Christians larger in Canada now (and has been at least for a duration of time in recent years)? Yet it still appears that Christmas is still the bigger deal in Canada and another holiday does not appear to have yet taken its place in an increasing multi-faith, as well as secularizing country.

Though, it's notable that the US had a larger Jewish community earlier on, and thus Americans might have been more conscious that not everyone celebrates Christmas. Additionally by sometime around the 90s, I still remember Kwanzaa was often included, so people often wished people "Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanzaa" in a three-part holiday greeting.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

IBut isn't the relative number of non-Christians larger in Canada now (and has been at least for a duration of time in recent years)? Yet it still appears that Christmas is still the bigger deal in Canada and another holiday does not appear to have yet taken its place in an increasing multi-faith, as well as secularizing country.

Christmas in Canada seems to be a lot more secular than it is in the USA, and it seems like a lot more of non-Christians celebrate it here. By contrast American Christmas seems more firmly connected to Christianity.

In this respect, Canada is more like the rest of the world. Even in the European countries that are heavily secularized (like France, Sweden, Czechia, etc.) Christmas is still a big deal. Heck, Christmas is a big deal in Japan despite only a tiny fraction of the population having any Christian background at all.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Christmas in Canada seems to be a lot more secular than it is in the USA, and it seems like a lot more of non-Christians celebrate it here. By contrast American Christmas seems more firmly connected to Christianity.

In this respect, Canada is more like the rest of the world. Even in the European countries that are heavily secularized (like France, Sweden, Czechia, etc.) Christmas is still a big deal. Heck, Christmas is a big deal in Japan despite only a tiny fraction of the population having any Christian background at all.

Thanksgiving and the 4th are the two universal American holidays.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ 50 miles seems like a number designed to isolate intercity trips.

Based on the cultural signposts like movies, literature, etc., it does seem that in the US, Thanksgiving is THE holiday for far flung families to get together. Maybe not quite on the same level as Chinese new year in the PRC, but broadly similar.

Not even remotely on the same level as what the Chinese call 春运 (chun1 yun4) "Spring Travel" which is a period of 40 or so days every year with massive travel volumes - about 3 billion trips were made in the 2017 Chunyun period. Broadly similar in the importance for visiting family, okay, but nothing remotely similar beyond that. Like many other things in China, it's on a scale found nowhere else in the world.

I once had the misfortune of driving back from my wife's hometown (in rural Anhui province about 675km west of Shanghai) on the last day of the official one week long holiday period (during which time the road tolls on all expressways are dropped) and a trip that took about 8 hours going out because we did it before the official holiday period began took more than 20 hours due to massive traffic jams on all the highways. There's nothing quite like being stuck in a traffic jam on a rural highway at 11pm.

[240glt]

Two of my renters are Americans from Denver, I have an American boss and work for a large American company. I see the Americans making a big deal about pretty much every holiday. My rental house looked like uncle Sam had barfed all over it, inside & out on the 4th of July. She actually had family ship her up decorations from the states for it. My boss introduced some American-style banners and decorations for our lobby, but in Canadian motif for Canada day, everyone was blown away. Thanksgiving is huge, President's day, 4th of July, same thing. Americans make a big deal out of holidays.

Do you know what the Americans think of Canadians during Canadian holidays ? My boss put it best: "Your Canadian holidays are just another excuse to take the day off, sit in the back yard and drink"

I can't really argue with that

[WhipperSnapper]

Than again, when the Germans arrived in the US they tended to spread out in all directions and multiply while other ethnicities hoarded in the cities and fought each other for each foot of territory. The typical southern Republican just oozes German heritage even to this day. Oh yeah, Germans are mad crazy for Christmas.