It's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada.

This means that we do 30 hours of work to do 30 minutes of eating.

I know I sound bitter, and I probably shouldn't, but I really, really, really, really, really hate family get-togethers. The only reason that this one doesn't have me cursing --yet-- is because one of my aunts (Aunt Ditz) and her trio of spawn and duo of grandspawn aren't coming. A warning: I may be about to get offensive here, so the faint of heart who are not familiar with my rants should probably stop reading right now.

One of my cousins, C, is younger than I am, and she has two children. One of them about two years, two months (D-1), and the other's just an infant (D-2). I am not good with children. I do not like them, I do not want them, and I will not ever have them. Which is fine, you're probably saying, my choices have nothing to do with hers and they really don't impact me.

So let's take this further. I've done some animal rescue: two of my current zoo are rescues. One of them, Max, is a cockatiel and no cause for concern (although he can bite through leather work gloves. Seriously.). He is extremely hand-shy and aggressive, and I only take him out if it's just me, so I can do his nails and wings, and maybe sit with him for a bit in my bedroom just to interact with him, where he's fine if there are no hands anywhere. His former cagemate, Rocky, was also a rescue, but he's gone to the Rainbow Bridge from a heart attack/stroke/seizure some years ago. He fell from a perch and broke his neck on the fall, and died a few minutes later in my hands.

So that brings me to my second (living, technically third) rescue project. Grady. He is a massive chocolate lab that is made of pure sinew and nervous energy. He was seriously abused in his previous home, has had to have three surgeries on a luxated patella that still freezes up for twenty minutes or so randomly, and has a "it ain't much, but it's MINE" mentality. This is a dog that does not mess around. He understands the saying of "Gather the facts, digest the information, consider the implications, and then go postal. But with precision." He does not like children until they're teenagers, and then he can tolerate them because they count as mini-adults, not miserable little bratlings.

My cousin, C, does not like to watch D-1, her oldest. Every time they're over here, the kid runs free. It has a tendency to jump my dogs. Chaos and Outlaw, they can tolerate this and they'll go into hiding. Grady, however, does not. He will growl and hold his ground. It ain't much, but it's mine. Last time they were here, Grady went into hiding by the stairs in the living room, one of his denning spots where he can keep an eye on the living room, the back door, and not let anyone upstairs, as they're not supposed to be up there. D-1 wanders around for a bit, sees Grady, and runs for him, trips on the landing, and crashes into the dog.

Insert Grady barking and growling, the kid freaks out, and all hell breaks loose.

Another time, the stupid brat jumped on Chaos, hit his head on the dog's muzzle, and people (Aunt Ditz and C) flip out: "THERE'S A TOOTHMARK ON HIS HEAD!!!!!" Woman, please. If one of my dogs ever bites your spawn, we'll all know. Trust me.

So on the bright side, they're not coming, and this makes everything just that much better. I know Thanksgiving is supposed to be a time for family and gatherings and home and hearth and what-have-you, but it's a lot more peaceful when Aunt Ditz and the spawn and grand-spawn do not show up.

So continuing on, history lesson time. Why do Canadians have Thanksgiving earlier than our American friends? There are actually a number of reasons.

One of them is that an English explorer, Martin Frobisher, held the ceremony 43 years before the Pilgrims hit Plymouth on the Mayflower to give thanks for a successful voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador. Canada has historically stronger ties with Europe, and the celebrations of giving thanks at the end of the harvest season were common, and that carried on here. Not to forget, our Native peoples also had their own celebrations.

Secondly, our harvest season, because we're further north has a different time: our harvest season comes before our southern neighbours, which means our celebrations for harvest logically come sooner.

Thirdly, it meant that we held Remembrance (formerly Armistice) Day and Thanksgiving Day in the same week, and we Canadians like to space our holidays a bit, so it was decided to have it in October to better coincide with reason number two, and to give us all a break in October.

Me? I just give thanks when everyone's gone. If you made it to the bottom, you'll surely understand that life is being a pain right now with the weekend and deadlines at work, and I'll do my best to post next week or on Monday.