Thanksgiving

This is the second year that our family has celebrated three Thanksgivings in one year.  First, on Thursday, September 19th, we celebrated the Korean Thanksgiving (Chuseok).  Each year, the Koreans celebrate Chuseok for three days around the Autumn Equinox by visiting their ancestral hometowns and partaking of special foods and activities.  When our family moved to the U.S., rather than ancestral hometown, we gathered with extended family and friends to mark this time. And now that we are in Canada, in some ways we try not to make a big deal out of it, but at the same time, it has become more meaningful.  The Korean churches usually celebrate this time by giving out rice cake (songpyon) after the worship service.

Our family celebrated the Canadian Thanksgiving much the way that we would have celebrated the U.S. Thanksgiving – cooking up a storm, including two turkeys, and watching football.  Since we do not have family here in Canada, we invited the young adults group at the church that we attend.  Being Korean, many of them had not tasted a Thanksgiving turkey before.  This year, like last, I baked the turkey upside down (breast side down) – the meat came out much more tender and moist than baking it the traditional way (breast side up).  That was Sunday.  The actual Thanksgiving day for Canada is on the second Monday of October.  This was proclaimed by the Parliament of Canada on January 31, 1957, “A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed – to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October.”  Of course, like many things in Canada, although it is a national holiday, the Provinces of Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia only recognizes it as an “optional holiday.”

This year’s turkey (22 lbs – baked breast side down)

We are also looking forward to celebrating the U.S. Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November (this year falls on November 28).

I am glad that being third-culture allows me to celebrate three Thanksgivings.  Our family has a lot to be thankful for this year, but we are most thankful for the way that God has led us throughout the year!

“I will give thanks for you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations.  For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!  Let your glory be over all the earth!”  – Psalm 57:9-11