422: Bonne Action de grâce

This weekend passed brought us Canadian Thanksgiving, and my first ever opportunity to celebrate a Thanksgiving tradition from any nation. This year I am thankful, as apparently it is traditional to be thankful during Thanksgiving, for having the opportunity to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving, thanks to my new friends and neighbours. Thanks guys for the turkey and the roast sweet potato, and the cranberry sauce and the pumpkin muffins.

I keep wanting to call it Canadian New Year, like Chinese New Year or something, but I have reason to suspect that the strange race of people inhabiting the arcane land of Canada observe the passing of the year on the same date that we do. In England. So it can't be all that bad, what? I can't think of anything in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that could be considered equivalent to Thanksgiving. It certainly wouldn't be our regions' respective Saints' Days, although perhaps it should be.

Hands up who knows when St Patrick's Day is; me, me, me, I know, it's 17^th March (I think, I'll just double check; yes I was right). OK well done, thanks to Americans who insist they are Irish despite myriad evidence to the contrary, and Guinness adverts, and the myth of the craic (craic is not a Gaelic word, it is a modern i.e. 1970s gimmicky rendering of the much much older English word crack; but that's an issue for another day), everyone knows when St Paddy's Day is.

St Andrew looking absolutely peanut brittle.

Next question: When is St. George's Day, or St Andrew's Day, or St the-other-one's Day? I have absolutely no idea. But then I didn't know when Canadian Thanksgiving was until last week, and I still don't know when American Thanksgiving is (November, maybe?).

To set the record straight (and hopefully teach myself something), St George's Day is 23^rd April, St Andrew's Day (who looks fearfully rough on his wikipedia page) is 30^th November, and of course the other one I so stupidly forgot is St David whose feast day is 1^st March. (St David looks to be doing much better that Andrew; smiley, clean-shaven and serene.) American Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday (random) in November. Then apparently there are things called Labor Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day and President's Day; too much. We just have random bank holidays that appear out of nowhere to surprise us with a day off.

Conclusion: I like roast dinner and days off work, and festivals from other countries are jolly lark.