Pre-taped Santa Claus parade to air on Saturday evening

It will be a pandemic parade once again for St. Nick in Toronto this year, but there will be no lack of joy and cheer.

Santa’s workshop was stuffed to the rafters with thousands of costumes and all 24 of the floats featured in the parade including the big red sleigh.

The Santa Claus parade has already been recorded from at Canada’s Wonderland and will then be broadcast this weekend.

Clay Charters, President and CEO of The Original Santa Claus Parade said while Santa misses the pre-pandemic joy of seeing the tens of thousands of kids cheering and waving along downtown streets, he wants to help keep all those kids safe.

“He loves interacting and calling out kids name on the street but as has been said by himself to me, he’s not going to take any chances, especially with so many kids,” Charters tells CityNews 680. “He understands the situation and is happy to help keep the audience safe and is looking forward to visiting homes on Christmas Eve.”

All that fun still needs a whole lot of elves working hard behind the scene, said Charters.

“[There will be] Twenty-four floats, mascots, nine marching bands involved, and performances as well that will be a part of the broadcast,” said Charters. “Between the teams at Wonderland with our broadcast partners, folks at the parade and volunteers who help make all the operations happen at Wonderland, there were still several hundred people involved in making this parade happen.”

A live parade, pre-pandemic, would need about 1,200 elves, he added.

Charters is expecting about a million viewers, the same as the parade would attract he says in a pre-pandemic live broadcast. It will air on Saturday night at 7 p.m.