Santa Claus Comes to Town – 1953 – Part II

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.

So let’s flip the pages and see who shows up next.

November 21 – 1386: Timur of Samarkand captures and sacks the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, taking King Bagrat V of Georgia captive.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town 1953 – II

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.

Santa Claus Comes to Town – VI

And finally the big moment was 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.

21 decembre – San Pietro Canisio