Today Special : Family Day
Family Day in Canada, the third Monday in February, is technically not a national, federally-mandated holiday. But most Canadians live in areas that celebrate it as a province-level statutory holiday — in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan as ‘Family Day;’ in Manitoba as ‘Louis Riel Day;’ in Nova Scotia as ‘Nova Scotia Heritage Day,’ and on Prince Edward Island as ‘Islander Day.’ For our purposes, we will refer to the holiday as Family Day from here forward.
HISTORY OF FAMILY DAY
Alberta was the first province to observe Family Day, back in 1990. As the next few years ensued, Saskatchewan and Ontario followed suit. In 2012, British Columbia followed as well, changing the date of its celebration from the second to the third Monday in February a few years later to match the date of neighboring provinces’ observances. New Brunswick announced its holiday in 2018. Manitoba, PEI, and Nova Scotia joined the party in 2007, 2009, 2013, respectively. In Yukon, the already-existing Yukon Heritage Day was considered close enough on the calendar to the new Family Day holiday that no changes were made.
As you may imagine, there are no established traditions surrounding Family Day as there are for Christmas and New Year’s Day, for example. But, as the name implies, many Canadians take advantage of the three-day weekend in February to spend extra time with loved ones. Road trips, winter sports outings, and extended family gatherings are all popular ways to observe the holiday. Celebrants find ways to overcome the cold and have a warm and cozy Family Day!
HOW TO OBSERVE CANADA’S FAMILY DAY
- Get back in touch with extended family : Odds are that you have a favorite aunt, uncle, grandparent, or cousin who would be overjoyed to re-establish contact and hear all your most recent stories. Family Day is the perfect time to let loved ones know you think about them often and fondly. You’ll thank yourself.
- Host a family get-together : It doesn’t have to be a complicated production. Even a simple family-wide pot luck dinner, at the very least, will remind everyone who the best chefs in the family are. There’s nothing like sharing a homemade meal with the people close to you, to give you a sense of well-being and belonging.
- Reach out to your ‘chosen family.’Let’s face it: more and more people who are members of the newer generations come from broken or dysfunctional homes, where the word ‘family’ only conjures emotional stress. If you fit that description, get in touch with a few members of your ‘chosen family’ — the close friends and allies that are really the ones you can depend on.
FIVE AMAZING FACTS ABOUT LOUIS RIEL
- Influential and sequential : Louis Riel’s life — up to his hanging for treason — was chronicled around the turn of the millennium by Canadian comic-book artist Chester Brown, who received the first Canada Council for the Arts grant to a sequential-art project.
- “Anything you can do …”The current official statue of Louis Riel, located on the grounds of Winnipeg’s Manitoba Legislative Building, depicts him in period clothing and moccasins and is actually a replacement for the sculpture from the 1970s that was controversial for its disproportionate body and its nudity.
- Rebellion is expensive : Riel was tried in 1885 for his leadership role in the North-West Rebellion, in which he led the French-speaking Metis people against the Canadian government of the time.
- “It’s in my blood.” : It’s no wonder that Riel championed the cause of the Metis people; he was one-eighth native Canadian, with a grandmother who was full Franco-Chipewyan Metisse.
- Any press is good press? : During his time and well into the 20th century, Riel was often depicted as nothing more than a treacherous rabble-rouser, despite his negotiation for the founding of Manitoba.
WHY WE LOVE CANADA’S FAMILY DAY
- It reminds us of what’s really important : Whatever the origins and evolution of Family Day, the meaning of the holiday is right there in its name. What would we do without the people that brought us up, and the brothers and sisters that have been there our whole lives to share in trials and tribulations as well as victories? On Family Day, take a minute to meditate on your blood relations and what they mean to you.
- It’s a three-day weekend! : Just so we don’t get too deep or heavy, anyone who’s still in school or has a Monday-through-Friday job can tell you how awesome a three-day weekend can be for breaking the monotony and granting some recharging time. Even if all you do is sleep in on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, we’ll count that as a celebration!
- It’s something our parents and/or grandparents didn’t have : It’s kind of cool to have been around on the establishment of a brand-new provincial holiday. Why not dig up a pre-Family Day calendar, and keep it as a collector’s item?
