Santa Claus parades, also called Christmas parades, are

parade A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of s ...

s held in some countries to celebrate the official opening of the

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

season with the arrival of

Santa Claus Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnigh ...

who always appears in the last float. The parades usually include themed floats, dancing or marching groups and bands playing

Christmas song Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject m ...

s. They are moving pageants that typically end near the centre of a city. Often sponsored by department stores, they may reinforce the store's brand recognition during the important Christmas shopping season.

History

The Christmas parade is a direct descendant of late Medieval and Renaissance revivals of

Roman Triumph The Roman triumph (') was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the success of a military commander who had led Roman forces to victory in the service of the state or in some historical tra ...

s, which had music and banners, wagons filled with the spoils of war, and climaxed with the '' dux'' riding in a chariot, preferably drawn by two horses, and thus called the

biga Biga may refer to: Places * Biga, Çanakkale, a town and district of Çanakkale Province in Turkey * Sanjak of Biga, an Ottoman province * Biga Çayı, a river in Çanakkale Province * Biga Peninsula, a peninsula in Turkey, in the northwest par ...

. (A

quadriga A () is a car or chariot drawn by four horses abreast and favoured for chariot racing in Classical Antiquity and the Roman Empire until the Late Middle Ages. The word derives from the Latin contraction of , from ': four, and ': yoke. The four- ...

such as surmounts the

Brandenburg Gate The Brandenburg Gate (german: Brandenburger Tor ) is an 18th-century Neoclassical architecture, neoclassical monument in Berlin, built on the orders of Prussian king Frederick William II of Prussia, Frederick William II after Prussian invasion ...

is drawn by four horses.) Similarly, the climax of a Santa Claus parade is always Santa in his sleigh, drawn by eight reindeer (an ''octigia''). Roman Triumphs were themselves consciously modeled on ceremonies honoring the

gods A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater ...

. The Santa Claus parade directly corresponds to the modern ''triumphal entry'' of Santa Claus.

Notable parades

Santa Claus parades are most common in North America. Peoria,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

has the longest running Santa Claus Parade in the U.S. The parade celebrated its 131st edition on November 23, 2018. The first parade in 1887 consisted of boats and derricks sailing down the river as part of the new bridge construction. In 1888, Peoria held a parade through town, celebrating the completion of the new Upper Free Bridge. The following December, Frederick Block of the Schipper and Block Department Store (later Block & Kuhl's) sponsored a parade that followed the same route and featured Santa Claus. This created the concept of a department-store parade that was later emulated in larger cities. Various attractions in the parade through the years included fireworks, circus wagons, a calliope, live reindeer and numerous parade floats. The parade was first televised in 1958. One of the largest is the

Toronto Santa Claus Parade The Toronto Santa Claus Parade, also branded as ''The Original Santa Claus Parade'', is a Santa Claus parade held annually on the third Sunday of November in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. First held in 1905, it is one of the largest parade productio ...

, held annually in mid-November in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

, started in 1905 by the

Eaton's The T. Eaton Company Limited, later known as Eaton's, was a Canadian department store chain that was once the largest in the country. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an immigrant from what is now Northern Ireland. Eaton's grew ...

department store. That year Santa arrived on a train and met Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Eaton, then walked to the Eaton's Downtown store. The first float was introduced in 1908 and consisted of one truck with a band to accompany Santa. The parade now has over 24 floats, 24 bands, and 1,700 participants, and is broadcast in several countries. In

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...

, the Rogers' Santa Claus Parade has also grown to be one of the largest, with 65 floats and bands. A special train also circulates through the parade, collecting donations for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank and the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau. In 2005, the parade collected over of food and 2,300 toy donations.

Houston, TX Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...

hosts the

H-E-B H-E-B Grocery Company, LP, is an American privately held supermarket chain based in San Antonio, Texas, with more than 340 stores throughout the U.S. state of Texas, as well as in northeast Mexico. The company also operates Central Market, an ...

Thanksgiving Day Parade annually since 1950. The previous sponsor was

Foley's Foley's was a chain of department stores owned by May Department Stores and headquartered in Downtown Houston, Texas. On August 30, 2005, the division was dissolved and operation of the stores was assumed by Federated's Macy's West and Macy's ...

, until

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

bought it.

Gimbels Gimbel Brothers (known simply as Gimbels) was an American department store corporation that operated for over a century, from 1842 until 1987. Gimbel patriarch Adam Gimbel opened his first store in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1842. In 1887, the com ...

Department Store in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

started its parade in 1920. The parade is now known as the

6abc Dunkin' Donuts Thanksgiving Day Parade The 6abc Dunkin' Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual Thanksgiving Day parade held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is presently sponsored and aired by ABC owned-and-operated television station WPVI-TV, through a co-sponsorship agreement wit ...

and was formerly sponsored by

IKEA IKEA (; ) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands that designs and sells , kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been ...

and

Boscov's Boscov's Inc. is a family-owned department store with forty-nine locations in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Twenty-six of these stores are located in Pennsylvania. Corporate headq ...

. It is the oldest parade in the United States held on

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden ...

Day as the older parade in Peoria is held the day after. In

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual parade in New York City presented by the U.S.-based department store chain Macy's. The Parade first took place in 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States wit ...

, famous for its giant helium-filled balloons, began in 1924, inspired by the Eaton's parade in Toronto, with

employees in costume, and— a distinctively Roman touch— animals borrowed from the

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...

Zoo. The giant balloons made an early appearance, with

Felix the Cat Felix the Cat is a cartoon character created in 1919 by Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer during the silent film era. An anthropomorphic black cat with white eyes, a black body, and a giant grin, he was one of the most recognized cartoon characte ...

in 1927. The inflation of the balloons in the streets flanking the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 int ...

the night before has become a traditional gathering for New York's

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

. Also in 1924, the J. L. Hudson Company staged its first Thanksgiving Parade in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and t ...

. Among the early features were large papier-mâché heads similar to those seen by Hudson's display director, Charles Wendel, on a recent trip to

Viareggio Viareggio () is a city and ''comune'' in northern Tuscany, Italy, on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. With a population of over 62,000, it is the second largest city within the province of Lucca, after Lucca. It is known as a seaside resort as ...

, Italy. The heads continue to be a feature in the annual event. Hudson's sponsored the parade until 1979 when it was turned over to a non-profit group. In 1983, it became the ''Michigan Thanksgiving Parade'' and is currently known as ''America's Thanksgiving Parade''.

Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is th ...

's annual Santa Claus parade, known today as the Art Van Santa Parade, made history in 1971 when it became the first parade to end with the arrival of an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

Santa Claus. The

Hollywood Christmas Parade The Hollywood Christmas Parade (formerly the Hollywood Santa Parade and Santa Claus Lane Parade) is an annual American parade held on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It follows a 3.5-mile (5.6 km) route al ...

(formerly The Santa Claus Lane Parade) in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

is a seasonal tradition that somewhat competes with the

Rose Parade The Rose Parade, also known as the Tournament of Roses Parade (or simply the Tournament of Roses), is an annual parade held mostly along Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California, United States, on New Year's Day (or on Monday, January 2 if N ...

and the Doo Dah Parade.

Gene Autry Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning s ...

wrote the well known Christmas song " Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)." after hearing children on the Santa Claus Lane Parade route yelling "Here Comes Santa Claus!" upon glimpsing Santa in the distance. As part of its citywide Christmas celebrations, known as Gran Festival Navideño,

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

holds a parade on Eje Central. The 2011 version featured mobile machines that blew artificial snow on participants and spectators. This parade has been telecast on the

Televisa Grupo Televisa is a Mexican multimedia mass media company. A major Latin American mass media corporation, it often presents itself as the largest producer of Spanish-language content. In April 2021, Televisa and Univision Communications announce ...

and Azteca networks, with

's coverage being the official coverage and being the most-widely aired coverage, being broadcast in other Spanish-speaking countries and on Galavision in the United States. Elsewhere, especially in

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...

countries outside Canada, Santa Claus parades are usually known as Christmas pageants. The largest is the Adelaide Christmas Pageant, which was begun in 1933 and is held annually in November.

References

External links

128th Peoria Santa Claus Parade

Toronto Santa Claus Parade Official Website

{{Christmas

Parade A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of s ...

History

Notable parades

See also

References

External links