Santa Claus Parade 2022

We went to the Santa Claus Parade this past weekend, an annual parade down the centre of Toronto with clowns and the mayor (the two unrelated) and a marching band and floats and things. I didn’t grow up in Toronto, but I did read the Booky books, in one of which Booky, the main character, goes to the Santa Claus Parade, even going so far as riding transit to attend this illustrious affair (my memory is admittedly a bit foggy), so it’s a bit weird to now be attending the parade myself as an adult with children that I’m responsible for keeping alive.

It was chilly and we were not all dressed appropriately despite admonitions to wear snow pants and we did not arrive early enough to get a good spot and yet fun was had by all, mostly by Caleb.

We’ve never gone to the parade before. The holiday season for a shop family is usually full of things to do and chores and boxes and this weekend was no different, the Sunday parade sandwiched between our first fountain pen meet-up at the shop on the Saturday and then our two day warehouse sale on the Monday and Tuesday. But as the kids get older, and as we continue to wing our way through parenting, I feel like there’s only so many more years we can put off doing these sorts of things, the things that families in Toronto are supposed to do at Christmas. We were at risk of Caleb going off to college, having lived his entire life in Toronto and never having been to the parade, despite living literally walking distance from it. Even Booky made it from Scarborough.

It turns out that I, spring flower, who wore the most layers and had all extremities covered, ended up walking the baby around when she woke up and then gave up trying to walk her back to sleep, and went into the Metro and ate a slice of lukewarm pizza with her.

Not a bad view, actually.