Holiday: Beaches Easter Parade

The mounted unit from the Toronto Police opened the Beaches Easter Parade in front of Fire Station 227 on Queen Street East on 12-April-2009

TORONTO, ONTARIO - If a procession like the one on Good Friday is solemn and for adults, then a parade is lighthearted and for children. Indeed, I suspect that fully half of the spectators for the Beaches Easter Parade in Toronto today were under the age of 10, and likely most of the rest were children at heart.


A child blew a bubble from the sidewalk of Queen Street East during the Easter Parade on 12-April-2009

One of the other principal activities for kids on Easter are Easter "egg" hunts for candy, but a much easier haul of candy comes from attending the parade. A substantial portion of the groups in the parade gave out candy, everyone from Lick's restaurant to Lindt chocolates (which were probably most popular with adults). While I let those shorter than me scramble for any thrown candies along the parade route, when a pre-teen walking the parade for a bank personally offered me a caramel candy, I thought it more polite to take and enjoy the small confection.


Bugs Bunny provided some appropriate flavor to the Ashbridge's Bay Yacht Club's contribution to the Easter Parade on 12-April-2009

A parade should have its traditions, and the Easter Parade is no exception--besides police and fire vehicles, old Toronto Transit Commission streetcars, the Shriners, and Scouts Canada, this parade always features interesting local businesses and clubs like canoeing and yacht clubs, each using lots of pastel colors to decorate their vehicles, floats, or dogs. This year, the Ashbridge's Bay Yacht Club had a Looney Tunes theme on their entry, with Bugs Bunny at the helm.


Bike Solutions provided stunt bicyclists to the Easter Parade who attracted a lot of attention on 12-April-2009

The Toronto Beaches Lion's Club sponsors the parade each year and does a great job of mixing the most entertaining entries throughout the lineup. Two particularly engrossing entries this year were a leaping leprechaun for the O'Connor Irish House and a group from Bike Solutions doing tricks on their bicycles.


The moment all the kids were waiting for--the Easter Bunny brought up the rear of the Beaches Easter Parade in Toronto, Ontario on 12-April-2008.

In any good parade, there has to be an attraction to promise to the children to convince them to keep paying attention until the very end. In the case of the Easter Parade, that attraction is obvious--the Easter Bunny, and one chance at candy.

More photos from the parade will appear in a future update to my photo site.