Bringing Christmas trees into the house for decorating was introduced to Canada by German immigrants in the late 1700s or mid-1800s. Now Canada is a major producer of Christmas producing about 6 million trees per year. Nova Scotia, the Christmas Tree Province, produces over 1.5 million trees each year for sale in eastern Canada and the United States. The province also ships Christmas trees to Central America, the Caribbean, and Venezuela. Every year a 70-foot tree is sent to Boston, Massachusetts in appreciation of the help sent to Halifax from Boston in 1917 when a ship with a full cargo of explosives exploded in Halifax Harbour killing 19,00 people and destroying much of the city.
Many French Canadians still attend midnight Mass on Christmas Eve and participate in winter sports on Christmas Day. Some still save their gift-giving for New Year’s Day, but others give their children presents on both Christmas and New Year’s Day. On New Year’s Day many enjoy a lavish turkey dinner with family and/or friends.
In 1905, the Eaton’s department store sponsored the first Santa Claus Parade in Toronto. The parade has grown in popularity and is now the largest Christmas parade in Canada. Because of the success of the Toronto parade other cities started having Christmas parades of their own.
The Christmas season ends for British Canadians on January 6 with the Feast of the Epiphany or Twelfth Night. A bean and a pea are baked into the Twelfth Night cake. The people who find them in their piece of cake become the king and queen of the night’s festivities.
Canada’s Christmas customs have come from a wide variety of cultures. They have given Canada a set of Christmas traditions unmatched anywhere in the world. Yet they still have formed their own set of national Christmas customs.