The Toronto Santa Claus Parade
Eaton sponsored the annual Eaton's Santa Claus Parade in Toronto. The first parade took place on December 2, 1905. For a number of years, Eaton's Santa Claus Parades were also held in Winnipeg and Montreal.
By the 1950s, the Toronto parade was the largest in North America, stretching for a mile and a half and involving thousands of participants. It was broadcast live on radio and television in Canada, and CBS television in the United States broadcasted the parade for a number of years.
In August 1982, Eaton's announced that it would no longer sponsor the Santa Claus Parade, due to increasing costs. A consortium of local businesses saved the parade, which continues to be held every year.
Read more about this topic: Eaton's
Famous quotes containing the words santa, claus and/or parade:
“On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”
—Johnny Mercer (1909–1976)
“No sane local official who has hung up an empty stocking over the municipal fireplace, is going to shoot Santa Claus just before a hard Christmas.”
—Alfred E. Smith (1873–1944)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)