Thanksgiving is an annual holiday in Canada and is more or less, considered a
secular celebration (though God is thanked for a good harvest season). Canadian
Thanksgiving is also associated with a harvest festival, just like the
Thanksgiving celebrations in US. In most of the jurisdictions in the country,
Thanksgiving Day is a statutory holiday, with the provinces of New Brunswick,
Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia being the only exceptions. The actual
Thanksgiving holiday falls on the second Monday of October, but Canadians can
have their Thanksgiving meal on any of days in the three-day weekend. Sunday and
Monday are the most common Thanksgiving meal days in Canada.
Thanksgiving celebrations in Canada are usually marked by a large family meal.
Friends are invited over to share the lavish meal and various traditional
delicacies are prepared by hosts. On this day, churches are decorated with
cornucopias, pumpkins, corns, wheat sheaves, and other harvest bounty. While a
lot of people go to churches, to offer thanks to the Almighty, others prefer to
offer their prayers at home, along with their family members. On the Sunday of
Thanksgiving weekend, English and European hymns and songs are sung by the
people and scriptural selections are drawn from the biblical stories associated
with the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.
In Canada, many families also look upon Thanksgiving as a weekend getaway
opportunity to enjoy the autumn season and participate in a lot of interesting
activities, like hiking, fishing, and hunting. Canadian Football League, the top
professional football league in Canada, holds a doubleheader, which is known as
Thanksgiving Day Classic. Thanksgiving week is the one of the only two weeks in
the year when the league plays on Monday afternoons. The only other such week is
the Labour Day Classic, played over the Labour Day weekend. However, the teams
that play on the Thanksgiving Day Classic rotate each year, unlike the Labour
Day Classic.
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