- The Toronto Santa Claus Parade started two decades before the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and in fact inspired the famous annual big show in New York.
- The Toronto Santa Claus Parade has been running steadily, without missing a year, since 1905.
- Statistics for the 2011 edition of the Parade include:
- A parade route that’s almost 4 miles long
- A participant list that includes over 1,700 people
- An estimated live audience, on the parade route, of over half a million people
- A worldwide television audience, with tens of millions watching in North America alone
- 24 floats and 24 bands
- One Santa Claus and for the first time in the history of the parade, Santa will bejoined by Mrs. Claus!
- CBS television picked up a few minutes coverage of the Parade in the early 1950’s, but due to American audience demands, later began to carry it in its entirety.
- The Parade was started by the folks at Eaton’s, a now bankrupt department store.
- Santa has arrived in Toronto for the parade by almost every conceivable means of transportation, from a traditional sleigh pulled by real reindeer, to an airplane.
- Santa originally arrived at Toronto’s Union Station in 1905 by train.