Today is Thanksgiving in Canada, and we have a couple of confessions:
Firstly, we had no idea that there were two Thanksgiving Holidays in North America, one for Canada and one for the States in November. We`re sure if your American or Canadian you’ll be shocked – but we ask you…have you ever heard of Waitangi Day?? Didn’t think so!
Secondly, we also had no idea what Thanksgiving was for? After asking around work – we found it amusing that most of our workmates also didn`t know the traditional reason for the holiday. The answer that was most common revolved around beer, family and turkey. We resorted to turning to our trusted friend Wikipedia who was much more helpful!
And lastly, we took the information that we had gathered and figured that we should at least attempt in enjoying this holiday – even if just turkey and Beer were involved. We made a decision to head to the local St Lawrence market to hunt out the perfect turkey companion. We ran into a quick problem…they were HUGE! Obviously great for large family gatherings, but not perfect for two small New Zealanders looking for a good meal! So to confess, we substituted the turkey to a smaller (but still too big) chicken!
Thanksgiving turned out to be perfect – with the first roast chicken that we had bought fresh and roasted without the help of the local supermarket, fresh Ontario veggies, and beer. We at least wanted to make this dinner as traditional as possible! Well as traditional as possible, as we`re sure Thanksgiving meals wouldn’t normally be eaten at the foot of a mattress, using a suitcase as back support and eating off your knees. But when you sell all your furniture to travel, you have to improvise!
We`ll put this experience down as practice, as we`ll be in the States for the USA version of Thanksgiving, where we start this process all over again!
