My Own Canadian Thanksgiving

Greeting Guests at my Home 

I hail from rural Northern Ontario. My memories of crisp autumn days of the 70’s, are of  decaying leaves, wood stove vapors, sulphur breath from the paper mills of Espanola and Sudbury’s own acrid smelter stacks.  Not particularly romantic, but sentimental - none the less.  

Even though my own heritage is broken, I do have shattered memories of a Finnish version of this spectacular, Canadian Thanksgiving holiday.  It’s mostly visual; abundant food and beautiful scenery. Golden glows, as the township greeted the end of yet another season. I took this vision with me as I moved to Southern Ontario. 

When my children were wee, I created an extended family experience for them.   Some how like mine, it didn’t matter if the attendees were superficially there, it only mattered that they were there. I needed volume.  Abundance.  That’s what I thought Thanksgiving was.

My Cabin greeting me "Home"

Now my children are in their later teens, and now we gather ritualistically at our Cabin. It’s location was thoughtfully chosen - half way from our home in Toronto - and my roots - the outskirts of the Sudbury Basin.  There, alone, we herald “thanks” for this primal feast.  There in the wilds I honour the fragility of the world.  One cannot see the bounties of nature unless you share your morning coffee with mist on the water, dew on the ground and an orchestra of creatures, as they greet their own day.  

Besides gathering with my own intimate group, Thanksgiving to me, has become a time of year that lends easily towards self reflection.  I have come to know that family is what you make of it; not the obligatory relations but the ones that you truly love and whom love you back.  No other commitment is necessary.  Love (as my Sister in Law; Nikki quotes from Ophra Winfrey), Love (she repeats) Doesn’t Hurt. 

This is not to suggest I linger on the losses of missing love, only to say that it makes the revelation of the love - you do have- so much the stronger.

Family and Earth.  Metaphorically,  my own little patch of garden is not unlike my own intimate group of loved ones, small is better than nothing at all.  Happy Thanksgiving!