I have long held this belief that if there is one thing that America does right, it’s Thanksgiving. From afar it seems to be the perfect storm when it comes to holidays. It occurs in the late part of November and really acts as the big kickoff to the Christmas season. In Canada we celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October. It’s all well and good, but it simply isn’t as well devised as it’s American counterpart. Since we don’t have any holidays in November it means that pretty much as soon as they take the Halloween decorations down in stores they’re firing those Christmas decorations right up in their place. This irritates me. Always has. Christmas shouldn’t be a 2 month marathon. US Thanksgiving takes care of this issue by creating a holiday buffer between Halloween and Christmas.

Another great thing about US Thanksgiving is football. They put traditionally 2 football games(this year 3) on to watch while everyone is home with their families. It’s just a great concept. In Canada we focus our big football day on Labour Day, where all the traditional rivalry games get played. Toronto against Hamilton, Edmonton against Calgary and Saskatchewan against Winnipeg are the marquee rivalry matchups in the CFL. Yet we feature 2 meaningless games on our Thanksgiving.

The US holiday is also geared towards holiday shopping. After Thanksgiving comes Black Friday, the shopping day of shopping days in the US. All the retailers offer crazy deals and it kicks off the Christmas shopping season for many people. In Canada we again have a day similar to this, but it occurs the day after Christmas on Boxing Day. Boxing Day is so popular it lasts days, weeks or months for some retailers. But really, how smart does it seem to have all the crazy deals available to consumers after Christmas? I’m sure many would have appreciated the deals for presents before Christmas for those on their shopping lists.

Even the days that US Thanksgiving falls on are superior. Having a holiday on a Thursday/Friday is a masterstroke really. It enables people to go out and have a good time on Wednesday night. Then they have 4 days before they have to head back to work. That’s just plain awesome. Who doesn’t love a 4 day weekend? Canadian Thanksgiving falters in this regard, first being a one day holiday, and secondly that it falls on a Monday. It normally ends up being a waste day that you can’t do much of anything on.

So to you Americans, enjoy your awesome holiday while I wish I was eating turkey today too.