Thanksgiving in Ontario

For forty years of my life I have celebrated a cold November Thanksgiving as an American living in Delaware and Pennsylvania. The holiday falling on a Thursday always made for a nice extra long weekend.

Now as a Canadian citizen, celebrating Thanksgiving in October was a new tradition which took some getting used to. In Canada Thanksgiving falls on the second Monday of October and is more of a harvest celebration than celebrating the pilgrims feast. Click here to read more about the history of Thanksgiving in Canada.

Never in all my years, would I have ever imagined that I would be swimming on Thanksgiving weekend, but this year with the above average temperatures, it happened. The air temperatures were in the high 70's and the water temp near Thorah Island on Lake Simcoe (below photo) was 64 degrees Fahrenheit.

Since 2008 our tradition became a lovely Sunday dinner at Beaverton Yacht Club on Lake Simcoe, where we dock our boat. In my 11 years in Ontario, I have noticed that Canadians don't necessarily celebrate Thanksgiving on the actual Monday that it falls on, but when it is convenient for them to have friends and family around. Some cook their turkeys on Saturday or Sunday, and some on the actual holiday Monday. After all who wants a turkey hangover heading back to work on Tuesday:-)

This year the turkey dinner at the yacht club turned into a pot luck with no turkey, so we declined. Kind of selfish of me, but without turkey it was not Thanksgiving. This was one tradition I could not bring myself to change. My husband and I decided to start our own tradition and cook a Butterball stuffed turkey breast on the boat in our convection oven, even though we would miss sharing the bounty of goodies (below) with our friends.

With the weekend forecast calling for unseasonably warm weather, we left the turkey breast at home to be enjoyed on Monday the actual holiday, and opted for a ham dinner with loaded mashed potatoes, turkey gravy and waxed beans, all done in the microwave without using the oven which would heat up the boat. A new tradition was started and we enjoyed swimming and cruising on Saturday with steaks on the BBQ, and a harvest dinner on Sunday and Monday, and pumpkin pie for breakfast all weekend long.

I'm really getting used to an Ontario Thanksgiving in October, and loving it!