Reflecting on family tradition, guest blogger Kai Tao, a Red Cross volunteer in Ontario, shares one of his fondest memories of Thanksgiving.
I spent most of my first 18 years of Thanksgiving long weekend in Canada being a member of an extended family in Minedosa, Manitoba. The 'MacKays' clan would get together in a little three bedroom bungalow yearly and gave me the best ever orientation to Canada. There were some 20 people, ranging from very young to very matured. I remember the aroma of turkey being prepared on Sunday with the boys driving around spotting for geese hunting on Thanksgiving.
While the turkey was served with the normal dressing and homemade cranberry sauce, the conversation quickly turned into the geese spotting teams exchanging information and deciding where hunting should take place.
Groups were formed in the kitchen, the living room was for the adults, and the finished basement was where kids played. By 2AM, we would be sleeping on any space we could find with our personal sleeping bag...until 4am when all the boys would start a breakfast cooking team and fill many thermos of coffee or soup for the hunting.
By the time I moved to Markham, I broke the tradition as my pace picked up with the larger Chinese community, but the fond memory of Minedosa goes on. My oldest daughter picks up the turkey dinner tradition again with my son-in-law, but the geese hunting portion is long gone.