The North Door

Each year, after Halloween, after the leaves have fallen from the trees, the Christmas decorations start going up on houses and the Santa Claus parades begin. The Christmas season starts in November.

The first big parade was last Saturday (November 18th) in Niagara Falls. The parade was over two hours long and went along Victoria Avenue, and then down Queen Street in the north part of Niagara Falls. There were clowns and politicians, decorated floats and antique cars, police and firefighters, dogs, horses, and miniature ponies, and marching bands from near and far. And of course at the end, behind the Orchard Park Marching Band and the Zehrs vegetable float, came Santa Claus and his reindeers. We watched it outside the Main Branch Public Library across from Tim Hortons on Victoria Avenue.

In the following weeks there will be Santa parades in Fort Erie, Thorold, St. Catharines, Port Colbourne, Grimsby, and Niagara-on-the-Lake. Some of them are morning parades and some of them take place in the evening. All worth attending. Personally I want to see the mythic Orchard Park High School Quaker Marching Band again.

So what do you do with your old pumpkins? Smash them? I put my in the garden in the backyard to let them rot into oblivion. Halloween is the last night of October, but I think the whole spirit of that one night extends itself into November, the occidental Ghost Month. See what happened to them at my Flickr page.