Heading back to Canadaland on Thanksgiving

I've been away from the computer for most of the last 12 days. It's been another great trip... good times with friends and family. It went by really fast, but it's time to head back to Canada where we'll stay put until January. Braden has been a trooper... he's old enough now to be completely aware we're doing and staying somewhere different every day and that equals a very screwed up sleeping schedule. Between the excitement of being with fun people that are happy to play with him a lot - and being overtired day after day - he hasn't slept really good on any day we've been gone. But lucky for us (and the people we were with) he remained in good spirits and we'll be back tomorrow and can get back to "normal".

You can expect many photos and stories starting Tuesday night!

On another note... this year we'll be missing Thanksgiving. Obviously Canada doesn't celebrate the US holiday so Chad won't get the day off to lay around and eat turkey, nap and watch football. But Canada does have their own Thanksgiving... and I wondered what is was since ours if based on Pilgrims and Indians and so on. Of course I did a little research and in a nutshell, it is celebrated the second Monday of every October. Canadians give thanks for a successful harvest. The harvest season falls earlier in Canada compared to the United States due to the simple fact that Canada is further north. During the American Revolution, Americans who remained loyal to England moved to Canada where they brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada. There are many similarities between the two Thanksgivings such as the cornucopia and the pumpkin pie.

*** I think I'm really clueless sometimes... I didn't know what a cornucopia was, in fact I thought it was a dish made with corn - so I looked it up and in case any of you were as confused as I was, here is the scoop. It is a symbol of food and abundance dating back to the 5th century BC, also referred to as horn 'o' plenty, Horn of Amalthea, and harvest cone. In modern depiction, the cornucopia is typically a hollow, horn-shaped wicker basket typically filled with various kinds of festive fruit and vegetables. In North America, the cornucopia has come to be associated with Thanksgiving and the harvest.

And in case you didn't put it all together - Canada's Thanksgiving is tomorrow and since we'll have a full day of travel I won't be putting together any sort of feast to get in the spirit.