How to spend a holiday that you don't celebrate (or, my dad's slow-cooked chicken recipe)
As an expat here, I don't fully comprehend all the local customs. Such nuanced speech patterns as saying "Eh?" as an interrogative; or ordering donut holes by calling them "Timbits"; or paying for banking services. Many idiosyncrasies make a place what it is, imbued with a certain "flavour", a characteristic all its own. When another unexpected parlance, or way of doing things comes my way, I tend to sigh and shrug as it comes with the new territory. There is one thing that simply has not caught on for me. Something that, though it has passed 3 times since being here, still just doesn't feel right. That something is a holiday called "Thanksgiving" that falls on the second Monday in October here in Canada. The first year, I ignored it completely. Although later, at the end of November precisely, I also completely failed to acknowledge the traditional Thanksgiving that I could have celebrated. Nonetheless, the second year I noticed a bit more hub-bub about me: pumpkins, turkeys, day off of work. "Hmmm," I thought, "This is looking to be an annual trend."
Which is not to say that I don't recall owning a material calendar as a child and noticing the subscript holidays that didn't get much attention from the shops or a day off from school (Ramadan, Victoria Day, Boxing day, to name a few), but "Thanksgiving in Canada" in October before Halloween (!) seemed if anything like a misprint, or a joke from the publisher. "What Thanksgiving were the Canadians celebrating up there?", my childish mind wondered. America was the country founded on stealing and then "repenting" and then taking and then giving thanks for what we'd taken, right? Or did that happen in Canada as well? I guess it could have, for all I know, having been taught a total of zero subjects on Canada in all of my 12 years of history lessons. So these Canadians celebrate the same thanksgiving as us, but much, much earlier? Wow. It makes me want to write my history teachers accusatory letters. Instead, I call my dad and ask what I should do with the "kilo" of chicken thighs I have in the fridge. He tells me to stick it in a slowcooker with a can of salsa for 3-4 hours. It turns out to be one freakin' delicious dish.
Which is not to say that I don't recall owning a material calendar as a child and noticing the subscript holidays that didn't get much attention from the shops or a day off from school (Ramadan, Victoria Day, Boxing day, to name a few), but "Thanksgiving in Canada" in October before Halloween (!) seemed if anything like a misprint, or a joke from the publisher. "What Thanksgiving were the Canadians celebrating up there?", my childish mind wondered. America was the country founded on stealing and then "repenting" and then taking and then giving thanks for what we'd taken, right? Or did that happen in Canada as well? I guess it could have, for all I know, having been taught a total of zero subjects on Canada in all of my 12 years of history lessons. So these Canadians celebrate the same thanksgiving as us, but much, much earlier? Wow. It makes me want to write my history teachers accusatory letters. Instead, I call my dad and ask what I should do with the "kilo" of chicken thighs I have in the fridge. He tells me to stick it in a slowcooker with a can of salsa for 3-4 hours. It turns out to be one freakin' delicious dish.
