In November 2012 I did get as far as this in the colouring book - hey I'm not a very fast reader okay!
I've been a little late in getting to work on my Santa Claus colouring book but I've had a bit of a time finding a good old fashioned box of crayons. These days they have colours like Fairy Princess Blue and Little Girl Pink - I mean come on guys I want a box of crayons not clothes from the GAP!!!!
But here I am, crayons at the ready - let the parade begin!
I seem to recall that the parade always began with the Toronto Police Band - not a Metro entity in those days - playing "Jingle Bells". On can only think that after 2 hours of that cheerful little ditty that a dash to the Pilot Tavern was more favoured than dashing through any snow.
First appearing in the Toronto Parade in 1947 Punkinhead became a fixture for the next two decades. He was the creation of Charles Thorson, one of the early Disney animators, who hailed from Winnipeg. Thorson created Bugs Bunny amongst other famous cartoon characters, Patricia Atchison tells us the origins of the wool-haired bear and his colourful creator. Note that even back then the marketing people were busy and any true bloody Canadian kid has hounded their parents into buying them a Punkinhead doll, watch, puppet, bedside lamp or, for the real die-hard Punkinhead aficionado, PJs. As I recall the books were often free as gifts at the Punkinhead Fish Pond or as you disembarked from the Punkinhead Express that took you on a tour of Toyland.
One can only hope that the mermaids, mermen and good King Nepture himself were all well insulated under their scales and tails. Taking into consideration the cold that could hit the Queen's City in the middle of November the costumes were made one size larger so that they could be worn over warm winter woolies.
The children of Eaton's employees and students selected from various schools appeared on the floats as flowers, fairies, elves and Snow White's seven. If you appeared in the parade you had to endure fittings, some rehearsing and showing up at the Christie Pits marshaling area at 0630 on parade morning. Over the years thousands of children were more than happy to do exactly that for the honour of welcoming Santa to town.
I've been a little late in getting to work on my Santa Claus colouring book but I've had a bit of a time finding a good old fashioned box of crayons. These days they have colours like Fairy Princess Blue and Little Girl Pink - I mean come on guys I want a box of crayons not clothes from the GAP!!!!
But here I am, crayons at the ready - let the parade begin!
I seem to recall that the parade always began with the Toronto Police Band - not a Metro entity in those days - playing "Jingle Bells". On can only think that after 2 hours of that cheerful little ditty that a dash to the Pilot Tavern was more favoured than dashing through any snow.
First appearing in the Toronto Parade in 1947 Punkinhead became a fixture for the next two decades. He was the creation of Charles Thorson, one of the early Disney animators, who hailed from Winnipeg. Thorson created Bugs Bunny amongst other famous cartoon characters, Patricia Atchison tells us the origins of the wool-haired bear and his colourful creator. Note that even back then the marketing people were busy and any true bloody Canadian kid has hounded their parents into buying them a Punkinhead doll, watch, puppet, bedside lamp or, for the real die-hard Punkinhead aficionado, PJs. As I recall the books were often free as gifts at the Punkinhead Fish Pond or as you disembarked from the Punkinhead Express that took you on a tour of Toyland.
One can only hope that the mermaids, mermen and good King Nepture himself were all well insulated under their scales and tails. Taking into consideration the cold that could hit the Queen's City in the middle of November the costumes were made one size larger so that they could be worn over warm winter woolies.
The children of Eaton's employees and students selected from various schools appeared on the floats as flowers, fairies, elves and Snow White's seven. If you appeared in the parade you had to endure fittings, some rehearsing and showing up at the Christie Pits marshalling area at 0630 on parade morning. Over the years thousands of children were more than happy to do exactly that for the honour of welcoming Santa to town.
30 November - 1886: The Folies Bergère stages its first revue.
I'm not sure why I thought they were holding the annual Santa Claus Parade in Toronto early these days but the date in mid-November struck me as strange until I read a posting on JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium. A right click on the advertisement for the 1918 edition of the parade will take you to his Notes on a parade that came right on the heels of the Armistice celebrations the week before. Santa was particularly welcome that year - but not as welcome as the boys who returned home in the weeks that followed.
So once again last weekend (November 18) as he has for the past 108 years, Santa made his way through the streets of Toronto. His route took him along a familiar path - though he no longer stops at his old home at Eaton's - lined with cheering children and a good many nostalgic adults. And many of the old favourites that most of us remember from our childhood were there but this year was not time-warp parade - there was an APP to follow Santa's progress, a Santa Cam that took pictures of the kids following the Big Guy's float and posted them on a website for download and Celebrity Clowns carried giant frames and invited kids to get behind the frame with them to snap photos with their smart phones or cameras.
Mind you we had technology in 1953 that was nothing to sneer at: CFRB had daily dinner time radio broadcasts leading up to the parade, CBC televised it locally (okay so these days its broadcast worldwide) and we had the annual colouring book that any true aficionado had ordered, along with a new box of crayolas, weeks before from Eaton's.
So in the spirit of 1953 here's two links (Part I - Part II) to a film made of that transmission (it was distributed to schools in the more remote areas of the country so children everywhere could welcome Santa to town.) A bonus - for me at least - is one of those voices that I grew up with - Byng Whittaker reading 'Twas The Night Before Christmas.
Whittaker was the host of The Small Types Club, a lunch hour children's program ( we all went home for lunch in those days) - introduced by The Teddy Bears' Picnic he'd read us stories as we munched our egg-salad sandwiches and slurped our tomato soup. And when Byng said, “Ssssssscoot! Out to play, back into bed, off to school or whatever mother tells you,” we know it’s time to go.
And of course there was that colouring book. I'm pretty certain I had mine and no doubt used a fine design sense to stay between the lines and give vibrant colour to the floats, clowns and bands. |'m not sure if I would have mutilated the book by cutting out the Punkinhead puppet - after all I had a Punkinhead doll and a Punkinhead puppet - yes even then parents gave into to advertising pressure.
Over the next few days I'll be flipping through the pages of that 1953 colouring book - secretly wishing I had my box of crayolas to fill in the white with all the colours that I imagine delighted me when I finally had the chance to see them on the big parade day.
In previous years I've thumbed through the pages of the 1951 and 1952 colouring books - all of which were at one time available on the Archives of Ontario website for downloading and colouring. I say "at one time" because it appears they have been removed along with much of the Eaton's Christmas memorabilia.
24 November - 1978: Laurent Beaulieu came over for a drink, 34 years later he's still here!
Preceded by a band playing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" non-stop the entire length of the parade route the Man himself arrived. Though by the '50s he was in the traditional sleigh with reindeer in other years he had arrived by train, wagon and for some reason one year on a gigantic silver fish!!!
Santa's identity was a well-guarded secret but there was always a second one just in case. The "fill-in" Santa would be in a car with blacked out windows that followed the parade at a discreet distance - just in case!
Many in the crowds would follow him up to Toyland where secret (and not so secret) wishes would be whispered in his ear. But in our house we went off to Diana Sweets for lunch and since we were downtown a movie at either the majestic Loews or Imperial theatres. The visit to Toyland was always reserved for a later day when little spirits were a bit less excitable.
