Last Thursday Americans celebrated their version of Thanksgiving, a special time of the year when people gather with loved ones and reflect on the personal blessings in their lives before heading to the nearest mall or Wal-Mart to engage in bloody hand-to-hand combat during the annual orgy of discount shopping known as Black Friday. Just like Jesus and the Pilgrims would’ve wanted.
Here in Canada, this time of year is usually spent trying to remember the reason why we celebrate Turkey Day a month earlier then Americans do, but Black Friday itself — the day on the holiday calendar most reminiscent of an ‘80s-era slasher movie or a Norwegian death metal band — continues to make inroads. While Boxing Day remains our busiest shopping day of the year when thousands of people from sea to sea to sea (that’s for you, arctic Canadians) return their disappointing Christmas gifts, Black Friday specials are becoming increasingly common as Canadian retailers, desperate to staunch the bleeding of bargain-hunting shoppers across the border, make a big deal about the day — not to mention its newly spawned shop-at-home counterpart Cyber Monday.
Americans also get four days off for Thanksgiving, and the holiday enthusiasts of Team K&K think that if their traditions are going to be forced on us, Canadians should at least get the same amount of time off work. With this in mind, here are a few more of U.S. national holidays that Canadian lawmakers might want to consider turning into stats ASAP:
• Martin Luther King Jr. Day: The third Monday in January would be a perfect day to fete the fact that mid-20th century Canada didn’t need someone like Dr. King to push the no-brainer of equal civil rights. See also: Rosa Parks Day, Emancipation Day.
• Presidents' Day: Americans get the third Monday of February off in honour of George Washington’s birthday. Morley Callaghan, a major Canadian writer most people outside the country have never heard of, was born the same day in 1903, and this would provide a much-needed opportunity for Canadians to reflect on our literary heritage and celebrate perhaps his most famous accomplishment: beating up American author Ernest Hemingway in a boxing match.
• Columbus Day: Christopher Columbus is widely celebrated in the U.S. for being the first European to reach American soil despite not being the first European to reach American soil. Or even come close seeing as how Norse explorer Lief Ericson landed in Newfoundland a few centuries before Columbus mistook the New World for India. You know what else occurred in Newfoundland before it did down in the States? Thanksgiving. While Americans get a lot of mileage out of the holiday being based on Pilgrims celebrating their first fall harvest at Plymouth Rock in 1621, English explorer Sir Martin Frobisher and his crew were actually the first to officially get their thanks on in North America a good 43 years before them.
In fairness though, they probably didn’t get to eat any turkey.
