Thanksgiving, downs and other canadianisms

Today is Thanksgiving in my adopted country. So to all my loyal Canadian readers. Happy Thanksgiving!

For those unfamiliar with this holiday, it is a weekend where most English Canadians eat turkey, feast on pumpkin pie and spend time with their families. They come together and have a whole lot of fun.

The tradition stems from that of Harvest Festival, but my recollection of that is very different. Singing in school assemblies and donating a few bits of food to some cause or other, it's just not the same.  In fact, my memories of Harvest Festival are rather dull. Although I can still rattle off a few verses of "We plow the feeds and scatter" if anyone is vaguely interested!

However, here Harvest Festival or Thanksgiving s a real celebration with food galore. It seems rather jolly.

The Americans also have this tradition, but rather than being the second Monday in October, it takes place on the fourth Thursday of November. This strikes me as odd, considering the reasons for celebrating are the same, and the countries are geographically kind of aligned, yet the days are 5/6 weeks apart.  Buy hey, what do I care?

So what else happens on this glorious 3 day Canadian weekend.  Well here comes my next bit of cultural trivia.  The Allouettes are playing their traditional home game on Thanksgiving Monday. Know what I am talking about yet? Well some of you do, but the majority will have no clue. So the Allouettes are the Montreal football team. Now this in itself is complicated. For the Brits, read American football. For the Canadians and Americans read Canadian football. This is definitely not soccer, nor what the English call football.

So what is the difference between American football and Canadian football?
The size of a Canadian pitch is bigger, the end zones and goal posts are thus in different places
There are 11 players in American football and 12 in Canadian
The ball is also of differenent dimensions
There are 4 downs in American and 3 in Canadian and the list goes on.........

So what is my point? Well there isn't one really. Well maybe that culture and traditions are fascinating and today, I just wanted to share with you all, some fun canadianisms, that I have picked up in the least few weeks.

So whatever you are planning, Happy Thanksgiving. I for one are looking forward to having today off, whatever I end up doing.

Now altogether "We plow the fields and scatter, the good seeds on the land, for it is fed and watered, by Gods almighty hand......"