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Well despite the cold(er) weather, I was still a bit shocked today when I wrote the date: November 21^st – WOW, how did that happen!? I feel like September was just last week and Halloween just yesterday, but perhaps most shocking to our systems is that insistent holiday spirit that invades the department stores while parading itself through Toronto streets this time of year.

 

Yes, that’s right, the annual Toronto Santa Claus Parade has already come and gone this past weekend, which beckons the holiday season on with full force! So whether you were in attendance, or whether road closures festively forced you to take another route, it seems that a postcolonial-pre-dominantly-Christian-Canada means Santa just can’t be avoided.

So why not learn some trivia?

1913: The Parade is born when Eaton’s Department Store arranges for Santa to be pulled by live reindeer through the streets to the store. Children followed the route, dancing and singing as they go.

1919: Santa forgets his sleigh and arrives by…. plane. TRUE STORY.

1930’s: Santa hype was born. Despite the Great Depression, CFRB radio featured a month long lead-up to Santa’s journey to Toronto. By the time the Parade arrived excitement had long been building! I can only imagine how disappointed some children must have been to learn Christmas itself was still more than a month away.

1952: Santa hits the big screen, first televised by CBC. Already the Parade had become the biggest in North America.

1982: Eaton’s retires its sponsorship of the event, but is quickly rescued by 20 other companies within 3 days.

Today: The Toronto Santa Claus Parade is the longest-running children’s parade in the world, and is broadcast as far as New Zealand. Santa also now takes photos of the crowd as he goes, and onlookers can find them online after the event.

Pretty tech-saavy for an old guy huh?