Image via Wikipedia

I don’t remember celebrating Thanksgiving too much when I was a kid. Sometimes I wonder if we really did anything at all…I remember events from school, but not from home. My mother was a Danish immigrant, and I don’t think my father paid much attention to the holiday either since he was born to Danish immigrants.

Thanksgiving came more about as I got older when my father remarried after the death of my mother. And slowly over the years, I created my own Thanksgiving with my family, so I sort of grew into it, you might say. 

I’m grateful that Canadian Thanksgiving happens earlier than the American one. Plain and simply, I like the longer break between turkeys :-). Our harvest happens earlier in the year because we are further north, which is part of the reason, but the original Canadian Thanksgiving happened in 1578 when English explorer Martin Frobisher, (portrait to the right) who was trying to find a northern passage to China, ended up in Newfoundland. He wanted to give thanks for surviving the long journey, so he gave a formal ceremony and the tradition grew from there.

When we sit down as a family these days, it’s a rare thing! So I enjoy that aspect of it the most. I also enjoy the preparations for the meal. The kitchen smells good all day and getting everything timed just right pleases me to no end when I actually succeed :-).

Last Thanksgiving we sat as we usually do and went around the table, also our tradition, so everyone can express their thanks for all that we have. Little did we know that less than a month later, my husband would be laid off and our lives would turn upside down.

This Thanksgiving, we’ll be sitting down having survived this last year with my husband back at work now and a whole bunch of lessons learned. That is truly something to be grateful for.

I look at my life right at this moment and realize just how much I have. It’s important to take a moment to be grateful for that every now and then, but Thanksgiving gives us a chance to really celebrate it too. It was a tough, but ultimately very fruitful year in ways we would never have imagined.

So to those of you who are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend, I send my best wishes and hope that you remember everything that you, too, have! And don’t eat too much 🙂

IJ