Tossing Pebbles in the Stream

Sunday, November 18, 2007

The Santa Claus Parade

Can Christmas be far behind? Today is the Santa Claus Parade in Toronto. It is one of the great parades, started in 1905 and going strong.

Toronto, Ontario - The annual Santa Claus Parade is enjoyed by television viewing families from Norway to New Zealand. It was started in 1905 as a publicity stunt by the Timothy Eaton Department store. The first year Santa arrived on foot, but by 1910 he was in a carriage was drawn by 8 reindeer imported from Labrador. With funding by Eaton's for 77 years, the parade continued to grow in popularity and size, adding floats with nursery rhyme characters, bands, etc. Today it's a not-for-profit organization, which receives funding from Canadian Corporations, including 100 executives who contribute $1000 each year to dress as 'celebrity' clowns. About 1500 volunteers man elaborate floats, march in bands, and participate as clowns and costumed characters. They lead Santa past about a half-million people who line the streets of Toronto for the annual mid-November event. Each year, 13,000 volunteers at Canada Post help with the more than one million children from around the world who write to: Santa Claus North Pole, Canada, H0H 0H0.

Three generations of our family have enjoyed the Santa Claus parade.

Here is a photo the the parade as my mother and father might have enjoyed it.

One of my memories of ther Santa Claus Parade was the introduction of the character, Punkinhead. Does anyone else remember Punkkinhead? Sadly, it did not endure as a Christmas icon like Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer.

One of my lasting memories of the parades of my youth was the behaviour of my mother. She was always very determined to make sure we got a good view of the parade. Sometimes, this meant I got to sit on my father's shoulders. But I remember once when we were several rows back on the crowded sidewalk (havinf arrived a little late) and the parade was about to pass in front of us.

"Mom, I can't see!" "Mom, the parade is coming." We are going to miss Santa!"
(panicky sobs and tears begin).

My mild mannered mother was energized. Bold as brass she went into action. Like Moses parting the Red Sea she cleared a path for us to the front row.
"Let the little children through!!" " The parade is for children." "Coming through!" Suddenly, we were at the very front and my sister, brother and I watched the parade sitting on the curb.

[ It wasn't until I was a parent that I understood this behaviour. I am so mellow sometimes I have to injure myself to let me know I am alive .(LOL) Twice I have lost my cool in defense of my son: once with a teacher that had the audacity to discipline Parker unfairly (I told her she had no right to discipline him without my permission) and once when a doctor made him (at 13) cry for taking him to task for not coming to the emergency room earlier in the day (I stormed back in and tore a piece off that jerk.)]

This is float at a parade to which I took my son after we returned to the Toronto area to live.
We stood with our parents and my sister and her family on St Clair Ave W at Christies Pits, a place were my father played as a child. We then got on the subway and traveled to University Avenue and watch the parade all over again.

Around the Northeast Ontario there are parades in Timmins, North Bay and Sudbury. We used to have one here in River Valley. It was a modest affair which included about four floats , (including the firetruck loaned to our volunteer company by the Ontario government) and a marching group for the school. And , Santa of course.!

It is always a joy to take young children to a parade. Toronto's Santa Claus Parade is a great one, very much one of the many wonderful parades in that city during the year.

Almost time to start greeting people with a "Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas to All!"

Note: For more imformation on the parade and to see some historic photos visit this site on the Santa Clause Parade becoming 100 years old http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/exhibits/parade/index.html

Sunday, November 20, 2011

The Santa Claus Parade

It seems the Christmas season has begun. Today is the Santa Claus Parade in Toronto. This is the best such parade in the World and the oldest children's parade.

For those lucky enough to live near Toronto, it is time to gather up the children, if not yours, your neighbours, (for the parade is best viewed with children) and take in the parade. Be sure to get there two hours in advance so as to get a good viewing spot. For millions more around the World there will be an opportunity to see the parade on television
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The Santa Claus parade is a Toronto institution, nay, a Canadian institution, begun by the T. Eaton Company which sponsored it for decades as a playful obsession of the Eaton family and as a commercial promotion of their department store, Eaton's of Canada, which was a wonderful Canadian institution in itself, as a major retailer in downtown Toronto and as that wonderful mail order department store know to rural and small town Canada,( where most Canadians lived until the 1950's) through the Eaton's catalogue, particularly the Christmas catalogue. It was a sad day when Eaton's went out of business. It had been an institution that helped give our country a national identity. It lives on in the shopping mall, the Eaton Centre, in downtown Toronto and in the Santa Claus Parade.

Here is the first of a series of videos on the history of the parade.

As a child, I remember those magical few years when we were taken to see the Santa Claus parade, at true believers, so we could be reassured that Santa was in town and could be visited at Eaton, "Toyland"department. The weather usually was chilly, and often with some snow on the ground. This year it will be warm with the temperature at 13C. with some rain. I expect there will be large crowds lining the parade route.

I have written before how fierce my mother was making sure we had a front row seat if the crowd was was many rows deep. She would push up through the throng so that we could sit on the curb. "Let the little children through! The parade is for the children." She would hover at the back, probably only being able to catch a glimpse of us from time to time. No doubt she admonished my older sister to keep, "Keep an eye on your brothers and hold their hands when the parade is over." We were always treated nicely by strangers who readily followed my mother's admonishments to have us reach the front row. It was a more innocent time. There was no fear of strangers and possible child abduction, in my childhood.

When I returned to Canada from living in the United States, I had a son of my own and for a couple of years I remember meeting up with my sister and her family to watch the Parade near its beginning, at Christie Pits, a park my father often talked about as a place he played as a child.

One year we even got on the subway and traveled to the head of the parade down on University Avenue and watched it a second time.

The Santa Claus parade is one of those community events around which family memories are fashioned.

I also remember in my youth going shopping at the downtown Eaton's store. It was a large and magical place at Christmas time. We would walk to the village of Port Credit, which we lived near, catch the bus in front of Hooper's Drug Store, to take us to Long Branch, where we could get the street car into Toronto. It must have been an adventure for my mother with three children in tow. We were there, of course, to see Santa Claus and visit "Toyland", where we could see the great displays of toys, riding up to the appropriate floor on a classic elevator, which seemed to be made of brass with a caged door that was closed by an operator, wearing white gloves. He would call out the floors, "Third floor, Toyland!" It was the first department store to have elevators installed. It was also the first store to have electric lights installed. I was always fascinated with one other thing. The vacuum tube system in which messages could be put in a container as swished off the some management office. We could have lunch at the Eaton's stores restaurant. (before fast food places, it was one of the few times we ever ate out. Being on our best behaviour was expected). This building was eventually torn down and replaced with the Eaton's Centre. Now that I think of it I think it should have been declared a National Historic site and preserved. It seems progress overtakes many of the sights and sounds of our historic memories.

Eaton's Department Store and its retailing rival Simpson's across the road, had the most spectacular store windows, at street level. It seems they tried to outdo each other with animated scenes displaying toys and other goods, although I only remember toys. These were part of the Christmas magic we had to view though the largest glass windows in any store.

This is a painting by Kathryn Smith, a Hamilton, Ontario artist, of a scene "Eaton's Windows"

Here are a few photo's of Eaton's Windows in The Archives of Ontario

So much for my Christmas reminiscences. If you want to read memories of others you can find them in The Archives of Ontario.

If you have not gotten your letter off to Santa you could take it to the Parade and some elf will gather it in. Be sure to address it if you want a reply," Santa Claus, North Pole, Canada, HOH OHO". As a child, we always knew Santa was a Canadian for the North Pole is in Canada. We were happy to share him with the World.

We are still assured that every letter will get a personal response. For decades, staff of the T. Eaton Company took on this task, on Santa's behalf, and today, Canada Post staff does it. You can also send your letters with your excuses for being naughty and your assurance that you have been nice (I have tried my best.) before you lay out your wish list for gifts at Christmas. (Be sure to be modest in what you wish for and always wish that less fortunate children get gifts also.) I suspect viewing the Santa Claus Parade on TV will inspire a flurry of letter writing. I trust a real letter sent by snail mail is still the best and only way to communicate with the jolly old elf.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Santa Claus Parade

Today is the Santa Claus Parade in Toronto. Christmas is coming! I am not ready.

The Toronto Santa Claus Parade is the oldest and largest Christmas parade in the world. It is 105 years old this year. It is a Toronto institution. My parents watched it as children, my siblings and I have memories of standing in crowds, or sitting on the curb watching the parade and waiting for the final float with Santa himself on board; and, for the few years I lived near Toronto after returning from the US, my son got to watch the parade alongside his cousins. I hope my grandchildren have seen it in person. If not, it is not too late. I wrote a long blog entry a couple of years ago on this. You can find it here.

Santa in the 1957 Santa Claus Parade. It is from the later part of my era of me watching the parade.

For 77 years, the T. Eaton Company sponsored the parade, which they founded. It terminated at their large department store where Santa entered though a second story window to take up his place on his thone in Eaton's Toyland. How we loved our yearly visit to this wonderous place full of toys.

Eaton's was a major institution in Toronto dominating retailing there and across Canada though their mail order business. People in remote rural communities could buy almost anything through the catalogue. In Toronto, at one time, you could even order your groceries and have them delivered by Eatons. Eaton's vans were a familiar sight on the streets around Toronto as they delivered orders made over the phone. Sadly Eatons is no more. It failed to adapted and did not survive the changing retail scene. In Toronto, the Eatons Centre is a monument to what was.

The Santa Claus Parade now has many sponsors and executive of companies can even be celebrity clowns for a fee. I wonder if it is more commercial now than what I remember? I believe it is still largely a volunteer organization that puts it all together and makes it a success.

Here you can go and look through the 1909-1910 Fall and Winter Eaton's Catalogue. By clicking on the page, it turns over. You can also zoom it to enlarge the images. I have it open at the toy section. I am surprised at how many of the toys are still popular today, nearly 100 years later. The prices are also a shock. In the section of wood burning cook stove you could buy a lovely one for $35. I have been offered $3,000 for my antique stove.

The government of Ontario has an archive of the Parade covering the many year of its existence.

It is interesting to view. There are even short clips of the parades past to view.

It has been years since I was at the Santa Claus Parade. I live too far away. It is best watched with children. It would be interesting to view it now and see the crowd. Canada is now so much more ethnically and culturally diverse now compared to when I was a child and even since I moved away when my son was a child. I wonder how many of the newcomers have gotten in the spirit of the Parade and how the parade has changed due to the new demographic. The parade has always been a secular event. Religous communities do not participate, to my knowledge, ecept for the Salvation Army and the YMCA. All groups should be able to participate in the parade as well as the watching of it.

Must go. The parade is about to start of TV. I hope this is the beginning of the Christmas season for some. (Delayed for Americans because of Thanksgiving. :) )

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Santa Claus Parade

This is the weekend of the Santa Claus Parade in Toronto. It is a unifying social event which celebrated across Canada. The Toronto Parade is the oldest children's parade in the World. It was started by the T. Eaton Company as a marketing ploy to get people to his stores. It has become much more than that for the millions of Canadians who as children enjoyed the parade as a clear indicator the Christmas was coming and Santa Claus is a joyful reality for us all.

It has always been a secular event. Christian churches and organizations have never been a part of it. This means that all people of a broad range of religious traditions can enjoy this yuletide side of Christmas. This is more important now than in the days when this parade first began, or in the days of my youth, because we are now a multicultural society, particularly in our large urban centers.

Sadly the iconic economic retail empire of Eaton of Canada did not last as long as the parade. Eatons failed as a great retailer. I assume it did because it failed to adapt with the changes in retailing yet in it's history it pioneered many forms of retailing that are common today: widely distributed catalogues, nation wide mail order business and local delivery. It even became the anchor store in many malls. In the end, if failed, leaving us the Santa Claus parade and the Eaton Center, (ironically the anchor retail store site in downtown Toronto but without an Eaton's store. I find this sad to this day to see such a Canadian retailing institution disappear only to have American retailers flood into Canada to take advantage of the market here. Such is history but every year with the Santa Claus Parade we have a moment we can remember Eaton's of Canada and the great store that it was .

Santa on his float last year

The historic plaque that acknowledges the significant to the culture of Toronto

Below is a two part video of the history of the Toronto Santa Claus Parade. It is an interesting look at the history of the city over the 100 plus years of the parade. My parents enjoyed it as children, my siblings and I were often there to see it and my son had a couple of years when we lived close enough to be there on the street. We all have been able to view it on TV since the 50's. It is widely anticipated..

I could not resist posting this video below. It is one made by Eaton and distributed to school and organizations that wanted to show it. It reflect the values of me youth.. The family depicted is worthy of the family of the sitcom "Leave it to Beaver". Corny for sure but many of the ways of talking where the things said to me and my siblings at that time of 1953. I am a little surprised there is only one child depicting a time when three or four was the norm. I hope it brings a smile to your lips as you recognized a time past. You can find the second video of this two part story on youtube if you just have to see it all.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Today was the Santa Claus parade in Toronto. This is a great institution in the city, which I experienced as a child. I think of my mother on such occasions. She was big in taking such public events whether it be a visit of a member of the Royal Family or the Santa Claus Parade.

She would have my Dad and the three of us in tow trying to get a good spot to see the parade. With the crowds being nine or ten rows deep along the edge if the road it was sometimes difficult. My dad would have one of us on his shoulders but could not hold us all up. We would be excited. "The parade is coming mommy, I can't see. Mommy. I can't see. ! I want to see Santa. Mommyyyyyyy!!!"

My mother would go into survival mode. She would get the three of us together and form a fallanx, pushing forward. In a loud voice she would be demanding, "LET THE LITTLE CHILDREN THROUGH. THE PARADE IS FOR CHILDREN. MAKE ROOM FOR THE CHILDREN." Like Moses parting the Red Sea a space would open and we would find ourselves in the front of the crowd. I don't remember when we didn't get a front seat on the curb to watch the parade.

Somewhere behind us my mother and father had there eye on us with only a slim visual connection to us but in those days, it seemed all adults kept their concerned eyes on the little children. Some reassuring woman would touch us on the head to let us know she too had her eye on us. (Times have changed) It was only when I became a parent did I come to understand that a gentle, normally sane parent, can become a mighty warrior when it came to their children. Even mild mannered me has had such moments.

Toronto always had the best looking Santa. If time allowed we would make our way to Eaton's Department Store to see Santa a second time go into the store where we made our way in to sit on his knee and let him know what we wanted for Christmas after being instructed by our mother to not ask for too much as Santa has a lot of children to bring gifts.

When I moved back to the Toronto area I took Parker and joined by sister and her family to see the parade. It was always a good show but never as memorable as when my mother took us. It was too bad that she did not live long enough to be with her grandchildren and fight for them to have a front row seat.