Gather round Peeps and Meeps as I regal you with the story of the very first Family Day in Ontario.
Yesterday was Family Day in Ontario and as I sat in my room at 8 am wide awake and ready for my day of doing nothing, I remembered the very first Family Day ever in Ontario. It’s a rare thing for a person to remember the very first of any holiday, but thankfully this is a story that I can share!
It was exactly 12 years ago, on February 18th, 2008. The previous year, the government had decided that it needed a statutory holiday between New Years and Easter, so it was decreed that every 3rd Monday in February would be “Family Day”.
It’s honestly a nice thing. February is bleh enough with the grey skies and the endless winter and the cold and grossness of the snow all being grey and bleh. And yea, sure Valentine’s Day is in there too but I just posted about my feelings on that and it’s not really a holiday. There is a reason why universities and colleges have their reading week in the middle of February – so students can go somewhere warm and sunny and try to shake off the mid-winter blues.
Okies! Back to my story!!
I was a young little thing, almost 21, and in university at that time. Of course, it was right around reading week so I was already excited to have lots of time off away from school. I was working at the grocery store that I was the assistant manager of, and was still super tight with my 3T’s. Which I thought I had posted about but I can’t find it using my search so I might just have to make a whole new post about them.
Since it was a holiday, the grocery store was closed. We university students really didn’t know what to do. That day, it was a little icy and rainy but that’s what you get in Southwestern Ontario in February.
At that time, I was “married” to my work wife T3. (T1 was someone else and I was T2 because people called me Tri-Tri pronounced Tree-Tree, and our Big S was a guy). T3 and I decided that we were going to go out for a family dinner – because we were married. Being the broke university students that we were, I was living at home and she didn’t have a car. I drove over to her place to pick her up and we were off to Swiss Chalet for a nice dinner between us. I was always closer to her out of the other T’S so it was nice just to go and hang out.
We had a nice dinner, but while we were inside it was still raining and the roads were getting pretty icy. This was before I murdered the mailbox and I wasn’t so anxious about driving on winter roads. We left, and I slowly pulled out of the parking lot onto the main road, we had to cross a few lanes of traffic to get to a turning lane, which was easy enough to do. But the turning lane was just a giant sheet of ice.
Being a Canadian driver, I was able to slowly stop myself and wait for the light to change before turning. We were singing to and car dancing to the music when all of a sudden T3 was like “please don’t hit us, please don’t hit us…” and I was all “dude what on earth are you talking about?!” And then it happened..
A car crashed into the back of us!! Into my parents’ car!!
It was my first accident.
T3 had braced herself on the headrest, but I didn’t know what was going on so I had a little bit of whiplash from it. It wasn’t long before my dad arrived in the other car to check on us. I called him while T3 called the police. The lady who his us was very upset – she just kept saying over and over again about how she had just put winter tires on her car and she didn’t understand why her car didn’t stop on ice.
The police assessed the situation on the phone and said that we could move the cars and go on our way. My dad’s car had a little tiny crack in the bumper, but the other lady’s car was crumpled quite a bit. My dad drove home in the other car and I dropped my work wife off before heading home myself.
The next day, I had to take the car to the police station to be photographed and to make a statement. The police were taking pictures of the car and talking to my dad while I was filling out the paper work. I had to make a drawing about what happened and include the speeds and stuff on it about the cars around us. It was a pretty cute drawing. The woman officer laughed when she saw it (yeah I seriously still remember lol).
So there ya have it my Peeps and Meeps! The story of the very first Family Day in Ontario.
Are you from Ontario or one of the other provinces that celebrate Family Day? Do you remember what you were doing on the very first Family Day in 2008? Or do you have some other type of holiday on the 3rd Monday of February where you live? Lemme know in the comments below!
That’s quite a memorable holiday! I’m glad everyone involved was okay in the end. I remember a few weeks after I got my learner’s license, I got my car bumper stuck into a snow bank after taking a corner a little too quickly in some icy rain. I was so shook up afterwards!
I wish we had a February holiday in the UK… We don’t even have January 2 off!
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It was a memorable day! Lol
January 2nd? We don’t have it off here either lol
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We had it off in Quebec and Scotland has it off too… I thought most people did actually!
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Lol nope! You’re lucky to have it! We have January 1st off but that’s it
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No wonder you remember that first Family Day. What a nice holiday. I don’t know about the other “Ts” so you really need to do another post about them for your new friends like me 🙂 We in the States have President’s Day and this year the joke going around was that we were not going to celebrate President’s Day until we got one. Funny but not.
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Haha! I have a post about the T’s going up on Saturday I think…or next week? It had to be scheduled a bit in advance just from the other posts I have done already.
And ooo nice holiday for everyone!! This time next year you could have a new one right?
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So crossing fingers on that one but then again, I thought for sure we’d have a different one this time! I keep thinking it is a nightmare I’m going to wake up from and it keeps getting scarier and scarier!
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Hopefully it all turns out ok!
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This past Monday was President’s day in the US, a federal holiday, so some people are off, no mail service, etc., or school. But it rained and was dreary…
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It was beautiful here!! Sunny and I had my window open for a few hours in the morning even! But today is gross – wet heavy snow over night, rain and cloudy all day today
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We have other holidays between New Year and Easter (for the record, Australia doesn’t get January 2nd off either). We have Australia Day (Jan 26) and in the Territory I live in we get Canberra Day (second Monday in March). But this is summer/autumn for us, so a much nicer time of year for a day off.
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It was such a nice day off yesterday! Today sucks lol but yesterday was bright and sunny!
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Wow! I don’t remember my first Family Day and I’m happy it wasn’t as memorable as yours. At least you got to spend time with your dad…?
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No….I didn’t?
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Oh I thought you said your dad drive out to check on you😊
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…for like 5 mins, and then I drove back to our house after
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Almost as long as I got to see my daughter for on Monday lol
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