Canadian Thanksgiving

American Thanksgiving is held on the fourth Thursday in November.  Canadian Thanksgiving is held on the second Monday in October, which happens to be the same day as our American Columbus Day.

When Mark and I were first married, our friends the Shumates (oh man, am I going to spend my whole time writing in this blog about the good ol' days with the Shumates?!) introduced us to Canadian Thanksgiving because *he* was Canadian.  Mark and I like food (um, have you seen our waistlines?) and any excuse to get together with friends, so we try to celebrate it every year even though we're not really Canadian.  But sometimes I do wish I lived in British Columbia.  YES.

Our Thanksgiving plans this year are crazy, so we thought it would be a really fun idea to invite some friends over for Canadian Thanksgiving dinner.  Plus, Mark wanted to try his hand at baking his first turkey.  Want to know his dad's secret?  Get one of those turkey roasting bags, follow the directions in the box, and add 30-60 minutes to the baking time.  The extra time makes the turkey more tender, and the bag keeps everything moist.  NOM.

Our house isn't too big, so we just invited a few friends we couldn't hang out with during the summer because they went off and did things like internships.  Pshaw.  We invited the Fillerups and the Hurds.  I really need to be braver with my camera and take pictures!

Dinner was pretty simple - turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing.  At the last minute, I remembered I'd like to make rolls, too.  If you want a good rolls recipe, you can either click here or Google "quick easy rolls recipe" and do the first thing that pops up.  I'll also save you another Google search and tell you one package of yeast is 2 1/4 tsp. ;)

Mark decided that we should start a Canadian Thanksgiving tradition that we say something we're thankful for as it relates to Canada.  We all ended up saying things like, "I'm thankful for maple syrup." and "I'm thankful it's colder up there than it is down here." and "I'm thankful for ... uh ... free health care ..."

After we went around the table, we started telling Canadian jokes.
Q: How did they come up with the name for Canada?
A: They drew letters out of a hat.  "C, eh?" "N, eh?" "D, eh?"

There's also got to be some kind of "How many Canadians does it take to change a light bulb?" joke we can Google.

After dinner, we needed to kill time while waiting for the pumpkin cobbler to cook, so we decided to listen to some good ol' Canadian comedy: Radio Free Vestibule.  (A vestibule is that area between the outer door and the inner door at a building's entrance.)

If you actually clicked the link, I recommend listening to the Pete and Bob sketches, Repeat What I Say, and What Is In The Box.  They're radio shorts; you don't actually have to watch them.  We also went on YouTube and tracked down "Bulbous Bouffant" and "I Don't Want to go to Toronto".

I LOVE I Don't Want to go to Toronto but the audio is just about impossible to find.  I managed to find some kind of weird AMV on YouTube.  Don't watch it; just listen and read the lyrics:



I have no idea why I find this so funny ... little girls in suits holding black balloons, donuts made of edible oil, people having cigarette ads instead of faces and numbers instead of names ... maybe that's why I love The Far Side so much.  It's just about as random.

We ended the night playing cards  When our brains got too tired from playing Bridge (which I've mentioned before), we settled for a few rounds of a simpler game - Idiot.  I found it quite fitting, because once upon a time I found out there was another name for the game - Canada!

I love spending time with my friends.  We've decided to turn Canadian Thanksgiving into a new tradition we celebrate with our friends, since we often spend American Thanksgiving out of town with family.  HURRAH.


PS. Come over and play with us!  YES!