There is no Thanksgiving Holiday in Bermuda. This makes sense, with the lack of pilgrims, wild turkeys, a general harvest season, and all of that. However, what Bermuda does have a fair abundance of, is Canadians. The last Census here was taken in 2010. It says that at that time there were about 2, 235 Canadians sprinkled across these 20.74 square miles (which is the amount of land mass the Bermudian government claims, they must have counted one more rock sticking out of the ocean than wikipedia who has us set at 20.6). That put Canadian expats at 4% of the population of Bermuda at that time. People always say there are a lot of Canadians here, but 4% is really not that many, so I expect we just have a larger than life presence. There are actually more Americans, more UK citizens, and more Caribbean citizens than Canadians. I was going to look at those percentages on the Government of Bermuda web page, but when i pulled out the calculator, the number of each population subgroup does not add up to the population total in the same chart, apparently 2551 people are unaccounted for and lost in the Bermuda triangle. Perhaps the census workers did not check the pubs. Anyway, the point is, there are a bunch of Canadians on the island who will be celebrating Thanksgiving in Bermuda today, and I shall be one of them.
Today will be the second-annual Irish-hosted Canadian Thanksgiving at McShibby's...and my last Thanksiving on the island. McShibby's is the affectionate nickname we have given to Siobhan's house. Siobhan is a nurse from Ireland, suitably so, as she has the most deeply rooted instinct to feed and nurture people that i have ever seen. Her nickname is Shibby, and legend has it that no one has ever made it out of her place without being fed. Never. I know I haven't. Last year she decided that she should cook a meal for Canadian Thanksgiving because I am Canadian and must be fed on that day. So, the word spread and we ended up with a little group feast. This year we started planning for the 8 or so that made it least year, did a small poll to see who was working, and in similar fashion we are up to somewhere between 15-20. Small panic here. This will be a nice, non-traditional thanksgiving. To start with, and my family will appreciate this, there will be no turkey (I got "turkey poisoning" from the hospital cafeteria in Edmonton one year and was too sick to drive home for Christmas at all that year. It took about a decade before turkey passed through my lips again, and even now it gets a dubious lookover and only the tiniest space on my plate). As well as my dislike for turkey, there are other more obvious obstacles -- for one my lack of cooking experience (really, do you want to poison all of your friends at once or just find a small test group first. Not the event to experiment with). Secondly, cooking it at McShibby's isn't a option as the poor girl worked until 7am and needs a few hours to sleep without me starting fires in her kitchen. I briefly considered trying to cook it here, but, the idea of me driving to the event with a giant roasted turkey tied to the back of my scooter seemed like a really bad idea even in my normally overly optimistic brain. And so it will be that we will be serving roasted chickens. The stores here sell rotisserie chickens, but unfortunately you cannot pre-order them. So I have had a furtive sleep due to nightmares about standing in line for chickens and coming out empty handed. Once the chickens are secured, there are a few more things to pick up...like replacement cheese since I stole that from my Thanksgiving dinner supplies last night...cheese is never safe in my house.
I promise to post some photos later, but for now better get cracking. Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family back home!
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