Christmas is just around the corner and Santa and his elves have by now beaten a hasty retreat back to the North Pole from their Santa parade duties. They are now doing last minute toy production and final checks on the naughty and nice lists. 

While we anxiously await the big day, let me tell you a little bit about my experiences with Christmas parades.

Every year for many years our family attended the Christmas parade in Orleans. If you haven’t seen it, suffice to say it is a big deal. Police block off streets. Families line up along St. Joseph Boulevard in droves. Children often must fight with adults for front row spots to see the parade. And every year our extended family – my brother and his kids, my daughter and her family, my wife, my nephew, even me? (sometimes I wisely stayed at home to clean up) would get together for a pre-parade dinner, then race to bundle up with snowpants, heavy coats, toques, mitts, and scarves. Into multiple cars we would scramble and drive to the parade. Parking was always difficult and Santa spotting spaces were at a premium, so every year we seemed to go earlier and earlier. Then we would wait. And wait. One of the floats routinely had problems and the parade had to stop. Fortunately, a high school band would keep playing and then we would hear Santa in the distance. Eventually, all 50-60 floats would go by, Santa would wave, sirens would go off, and everyone would return to our house to thaw. This was considered fun, and it was a longstanding family tradition. 

This year in our new house in Crysler it was again Santa parade day – right here in the village (we did not go into the big city). My brother’s family came from Gatineau and my daughter’s family walked over to our house (they live in Crysler too). My son in law’s parents joined us. 

Early in the day it was spitting rain but by late afternoon it was over. About four o’clock we could hear someone over at the community centre testing the microphones: “1 2 3…ho ho ho”. We ate the traditional Santa parade day meal, bundled up (fewer clothes thankfully were needed as the temperature was a balmy 4 degrees), and then we walked about two hundred feet to my daughter’s house where benches and chairs had been strategically arranged close to the parade route road. 

At exactly 6:30, like clockwork, the sirens sounded, and the parade came down the street. The volunteer fire truck went first, brightly lit with Christmas lights. Then came the paramedics who dispensed candies to all our kids, forgetting it seemed the poor old Grinch who sat on a gurney at the back of the vehicle. There were handsomely lit floats from local contractors, a neighbour real estate lady, the butcher and of course the general store. The latter became an instant hit for my young nephew when he got to taste their great homemade cookie handouts. And then came the colourful front-end loader filled with smiling locals who threw candy canes as the loader methodically raised its scoop full of people up and down. On the sidelines the “crowd” picked up the rhythm of the scoop and did a matching version of the “wave.” Not to be outdone, the jolly man himself then appeared, sirens wailing and so close to the kids they could see he was looking directly into their faces (were they naughty or nice?). We watched as his float snaked down Pleasant Street enroute to the north side of town. 

Walking back to our house we could not help but notice that virtually every house on the parade route had been decorated for the parade. And as we all admired the lights, my six-year-old niece said, “that’s the best Christmas parade ever.” 

You know, it just might have been!