I took my daughter to our city’s (Toronto’s) 100th Santa Claus Parade last weekend…the longest running Santa Clause parade in the world. We took the subway into the city and were lucky to find a seat for the 14-stop train ride to the parade route. It was a balmy 12 degrees Celsius with the sun shining bright. Most years that I have gone, it has always been very cold and uncomfortable. When we came to the parade root I was fortunate enough to have found a phone booth that was unoccupied. When I mean unoccupied, I’m referring to the fact there was no one sitting on top of it taking in the view of the parade. I easily coaxed my daughter up and had her sit on the phone booth where she enjoyed a splendid view of the procession (along with three other little girls and a chiwawa(sp) who occupied the three other phone booths beside her).

The parade, which always ends with Santa , started off with the anti-Christ himself…Ronald Macdonald…and next to Santa, got the biggest round of applause from the kids. Both have a few things in common…they both have red noses, are always happy, and do a fine job of getting kids to be good so they will get more toys either through Christmas gifts or from parents buying them a happy meal…the latter being a big price to pay (nutrition wise) for a set of the latest cartoon action figures (McDonalds should stick to what they do best…selling little toys…now if they could only do it without the food).

The marching bands were good, but I have to hand it to you Americans reading this…. your marching bands (there were several in the parade) are kick A#@ compared to ours.

A plethora of floats depicting winter scenes and various popular cartoon characters like Scooby Doo marched along the 5 km parade route (how do those clowns walk on their feet for so long is beyond me?). There were many corporate sponsors like Hubba Bubba, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, and Pringles…all handing out samples, There were hot dog vendors everywhere and a elderly man walking the parade route selling cotton candy asking the kids after they eat it, to brush their teeth twice (I’m sure he sold twice as much cotton candy with the addition of the brushing pitch). Needless to say, there were a lot of cranky, restless kids on the subway ride back to the suburbs.

The climax of the whole parade for me was when the chiwawa dog, I mentioned earlier in the blog, started choking on a large piece of hot dog the owner’s daughter had fed it (we generally do such a lousy job of feeding ourselves as a species, that our pets are starting to suffer as well).

Honestly, the real climax for me was watching the expression on my daughter’s face as Santa finally came waltzing down the route…the look of pure innocence and joy on her face is reward enough.

Now what does any of this have to do with the BTD? Easy… I couldn’t spot a beneficial/neutral food anywhere around the parade to eat so my daughter and I waited till we got home. Waiting a few hours to eat something is not going to kill you. Others may argue, eating hot dog once in a while won’t kill you either. I’m sure the Chiwawa would disagree.