Think fast: when I say “Canada,” what immediately comes to mind?

If you’re like many people who are only familiar with some of the most basic, obvious stereotypes of North America’s coldest country, you might immediately start imagining giant evergreen trees, massive mountains, loads of snow, and rodents of unusual size (beavers, that is).

Above and beyond its rugged, natural landscape, though, you might also think of some of its more symbolic elements: the Maple Leaf flag, these weird things called “Provinces,” coins with Queen Elizabeth on them, hockey, of course, and, if you’re aware of the weird foods they eat above the 49th parallel, deep fried pickles, poutine (french fries covered in cheese curds, and brown gravy), and ketchup chips.

But if you’re like me, and probably a few hundred million other Americans, when you think of Canada, well… nothing comes to mind. Because you don’t think of Canada basically ever.

I hate to offend the good people from the Great White North, but pretty much all day, every day, I don’t even remember that Canada exists.

It’s like that meme I see on the internet from time to time, taken from the TV show Mad Men, where two men are in an elevator. The younger man says: “I feel sorry for you.” The older man says: “I don’t think about you at all.”

That’s what Canada is like for me. Sometimes, I’ll be clicking around on the internet, reading a breaking news story about a tragedy unfolding in America in real time, perhaps something involving guns or private health insurance, or guns AND private health insurance.

Random people with Canadian flag emojis in their profiles will start commenting about how infinitely superior their country is to mine. And that’s when it will hit me…

“Oh yeah! Canada exists! Canada is a thing! I completely forgot about Canada! I’ll be darned.”

Now, I will give our frozen friends a point here: they are indeed the superior country… in precisely one manner: they are literally above us. But only literally.

Canada is superior to America in the same sense that Lake Superior is superior to the other Great Lakes. That is to say, it is above Lake Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario.

But that’s it.

As far as the nation of Canada being superior to the nation of the United States of America? Don’t make me laugh. The USA has an economy that is almost 13 times larger than Canada’s, and three of our states have a larger GDP than their entire country (that’s California, Texas, and New York, in case you wondered).

And although we have almost the exact same amount of raw land as each other, just the state of California matches Canada’s entire population, still leaving us with 49 states to spare.

So… where was I? Oh yeah, Canada exists, and I forget that sometimes. That’s right.

Now, to be clear, I have nothing against Canadians personally, and every Canadian I’ve ever met has been delightful. But it’s such a weird phenomenon: I almost never find out their true nationality until after I’ve known them for a while.

Over the years, it’s happened to me a few times where I have a friend, or perhaps a coworker, and he or she (let’s say he, in this case) is just an all-around great guy, and we get along just fine. Then weeks, or perhaps months later, the truth about this guy’s identity eventually surfaces, and it’s always jarring when it does.

Finding out that someone I know is Canadian is kind of like finding out someone I know has spent time in prison. It’s not necessarily something they should be embarrassed of, but it’s still such a shock when I find out about it. You know?

Many times, I’ve had conversations that go something like this:

* Me: “Wow, he’s Canadian?”

* Someone else: “Yep. Crazy, huh?”

* Me: “Yeah, but he seemed so… normal.”

* Someone else: “I know. You wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at him.”

* Me: “Why didn’t he tell me himself? I feel weird now that I know the truth.”

* Someone else: “Yeah, I wouldn’t mention it if I were you. Might be awkward.”

Okay, I’m kidding… but only halfway.

First of all, I am kidding about being surprised because Canadians are actually easy to spot from a distance. Not because of how they look but because of how they talk.

Every man or woman I’ve met who came from the Land of Loons fails two basic American shibboleths:

* They say “Eh?” a lot. (And don’t ever let them gaslight you and tell you they don’t, because they absolutely do. This is not just a stereotype—it’s the truth.)

* They pronounce their “Oh” sounds really funny. They say: “aboat” instead of “about,” “prow-cess” instead of “process,” and so on.

If I were an American soldier in an old black-and-white war film, and it was up to me to determine who the good guys and bad guys were without having the benefit of spies or special technology, and if we were somehow assuming that the Americans and Canadians were at war (with each other — I know this is a really big stretch, but just go with it), I’d make every soldier line up and give them a test.

“Okay everybody, one at a time, repeat after me: ‘Oh, I’ve got a round about process for brewing beer.’”

Down the line, I’d go, listening to each man repeat my test phrase until, eventually, one man would say:

“Oh, I’ve got a roaned aboat prohcess for brewing beer, eh?”

Knowing I’d got my man, I’d ask one more question to be sure: “Is that right? You do?” and he’d do himself in:

“Oh, yeah, you betcha.”

Boom! Canadian: bad guy! It would be so easy. They can’t hide.

Second of all, I’m not kidding about being surprised because aside from those verbal tics that give them away, Canadians pretty much look and act like us in America. And almost all of the Canadians I’ve ever met—I met here.

They’re here because they left Canada to come to America. Which, of course, makes me wonder, “If Canada’s so great, why did you come down here?”

But when I do meet folks like this, I don’t even think of asking such normal-looking-and-acting people: “Hey, are you actually from here?” I just assume they are, like everybody else. And they pretty much are like everybody else: they fit in just fine.

What does all this have to do with Christmas? Hold your mooses; I’m getting to that.

Canada is… an interesting place. It’s been in the news quite a lot recently. Right now, as I write this, there’s a huge buzz online about the USA potentially taking steps to annex Canada and make it the 51st American state.

There’s so much talk and cross-talk about it that I can’t even tell fact from fiction anymore. I don’t know who first suggested it, but it sounds like some people in America think this is a hilarious joke, while others think it’s a serious suggestion.

It also sounds like a small minority of people in Canada welcome this idea, as far-fetched as it may be, while many more think that it’s a very bad idea and insist that it’s not even funny to joke about something this serious at all.

Which, to be honest, makes it even more hilarious. The more they keep saying it isn’t funny, the funnier it gets. (And on a side note, when did Canadians, the people who have given us some of the funniest comedians in the world, lose their sense of humor?)

So, to recap: my point here is that Canadians are a funny people who talk funny, and who used to be funny in the past but right now really aren’t all that funny, at least when we say funny things back to them.

THE DRAMA!

O, Canada! America’s hat… where the people drink milk from plastic bags and live in their hoases doan by the moantains… perhaps someday our 51st state… a country so easy to make fun of.

All right, all right… so maybe I’m too harsh on Canada.

Maybe I am sometimes guilty of directing an unfair amount of ridicule to the country that is home to Dudley Do-Right and his fellow Mounties, those wacky policemen who ride on horses and wear muskrat fur stetson hats and scarlet tunics.

Maybe I am too fond of teasing the people who still somehow claim allegiance to the monarchy of the United Kingdom in one of the strangest, most antiquated acts of useless nostalgia an American could possibly imagine.

Maybe I am biased against a nation where every single government document and official communication in the entire country must be spoken and printed in both English and French, despite only 3% of the population outside Quebec speaking French as a first language.

But c’mon, Canada, you make yourself too easy a target!

Bringing up Quebec is a perfect example: while America is currently joking about taking Canada in as another state, Quebec is still very seriously just waiting for its chance to finally declare independence from Canada once and for all.

You hear that? Not even Canada wants to be part of Canada!

Quebec has been trying to leave Canada for 45 years and just barely missed achieving total independence in 1995, with a vote that lost by one-half percent!

(Note: If Quebec were granted independence today, Canada would immediately lose 23% of its population. That is the exact same percentage the USA would have lost if all the Confederate States had won the Civil War and successfully seceded from the Union. Can you imagine?)

Okay, enough ragging on Canada.