Yesterday we got to go to the Toronto Santa Claus Parade. I specify Toronto because each little town has it's own parade but it's not like the one in Toronto. This is the one that gets coverage by all the big TV stations not just local cable 10 coverage. It's been around for over 100 years. The website sucks but you can get some interesting info in the history section. It even gets coverage at the U.S. Thanksgiving parade when they break away for a few minutes so our U.S. friends can see the real Santa. As you know Santa is Canadian given the North Pole is part of Canada. With a postal code of H0H 0H0 where else would it be.
If you speak to anyone from the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) that has been here for a while they will have stories about going to the parade. How our parents would take us down on a cold winters day, hoist us on their shoulders or put us in a tree to get a good view of the parade. Things haven't changed that much as the same thing is happening today. You can even see some people on top of buildings in the photos getting a birds eye view.
What has changed is Toronto!!
We did not go around the Queens Park/ University area were the parade is actually filmed but rather went around the Bloor and Bathurst area near Honest Ed's. Most of the shops are closed, the houses around the area although worth close to $750K were in various levels of disrepair and everything seemed to be one step away from falling apart. I spare you the details of the smells as blogs are better for visual repesentations.
It took lots of planning an co-ordination to get down there on time with the appropriate amount of snacks, drinks, clothing, blankets... Most importantly the kids had fun and got to see a real parade with some excellent marching bands playing festive tunes.
We even got to visit Silvana's former next door neighbour who treated us like family with her hospitality.
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