What is Canadian Thanksgiving Anyway?

Since the vast majority of our blog readers and FreshBooks users are based outside of Canada, it is probably a good idea for us to point out that this coming Monday (October 9th) is a holiday here in Canada and the FreshBooks office will be closed (of course our servers and application are monitored 24/7, but our office will be closed for support and sales assistance).

Recently I was asked: where did Canadian Thanksgiving come from?  I think most of us know the American Thanksgiving story, the pilgrims, the thanks for the harvest, etc. etc.  But how many of us really know where Canadian Thanksgiving comes from?  I was born and raised here and I really don’t know.  I just remember it fondly from my youth as a perfect time to take a break from school, head home for the long weekend, get together with the family and all the friends I hadn’t seen since the summer and maybe get a game of yards in (tried to find a link for this game, but it is basically 4 to 6 people on a field kicking a football back and forth at each other until it lands successfully in an end zone for a point…great game if you don’t have enough people for football).  However, there must be some sort of story to it.  Of course, Google came to the rescue.

As it turns out the Canadian holiday is strictly for giving thanks for a successful harvest.  Sorry no pilgrim story, just common sense Canadians being thankful for all the delicious food and crops that the fall brings.

To make a long story short, on Monday the 9th we will be away, see everyone on Tuesday.