{"id":1878,"date":"2018-11-15T18:12:42","date_gmt":"2018-11-15T18:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/?p=1878"},"modified":"2025-10-21T18:07:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T18:07:42","slug":"santa-claus-parades-holiday-light-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/santa-claus-parades-holiday-light-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Claus Parades &#038; Holiday Light Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"b12171e95ca29a06569361a76d0dc3e3\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6144103376590397\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Light up your holiday season!<\/h3>\n<p>One of the things to look forward to in November and December, regardless of your religion, is how festive the season feels with all the lights and holiday events. Make the rounds and enjoy as many twinkling lights, Santa Claus parades and holiday markets as you can. We all need a little joy in the world!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1879\" src=\"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/article1_nov152018.jpg\" alt=\"Upper Canada Village\" width=\"257\" height=\"141\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Light Festivals (Central &amp; Eastern ON and Ottawa)<\/h3>\n<p>Upper Canada Village (Eastern ON) is magical any time but especially when lit up by almost 1 million lights on its heritage buildings, trees and fences during the annual <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uppercanadavillage.com\/events\/alight-at-night\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Alight at Night<\/a> Festival (November 30, 2018 &#8211; January 6, 2018 -check out website for specific dates and times).\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.saintemarieamongthehurons.on.ca\/sm\/en\/SpecialEvents\/FirstLight\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Sainte-Marie Among the Huron&#8217;s &#8220;First Light&#8221;<\/a> event (Central ON) offers family activities &amp; performers, set amidst the spectacular glow of over 5,000 candles illuminating the famous 17th-century mission.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ottawatourism.ca\/ottawa-insider\/christmas-lights-across-canada\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Christmas Lights Across Canada &#8211; National Capital<\/a> (December 6-January 6, 2019) lights up over 60 landmark sites across Ottawa with &gt;300,000 dazzling Christmas lights; tens of thousands at Parliament Hill\u2019s historic buildings alone!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1880\" src=\"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/article2_nov152018.jpg\" alt=\"Festival of Northern Lights\" width=\"257\" height=\"141\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Light Festivals (GTA, Niagara, SW ON)<\/h3>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.owensoundfestivalofnorthernlights.ca\/home.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Festival of Northern Lights<\/a> Owen Sound (SW ON) November 17- Jan 6 has 25 km of light strings &amp; 400 lighted designs which illuminate the city\u2019s riverbanks, harbour, downtown and park. Bingemans, in Kitchener (SW) is home to the largest drive-thru holiday light tunnel in SW ON; its\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/bingemans.com\/gift-of-lights.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Gift of Lights<\/a> stretches&gt;2km with 30+ static &amp; animated displays. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.toronto.ca\/explore-enjoy\/festivals-events\/cavalcade-of-lights\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Cavalcade of Lights<\/a> takes over Toronto\u2019s Nathan Phillip\u2019s Square with a\u00a060\u2019 Xmas tree sparkling with 525,000 lights &amp; 700 individual ornaments.\u00a0November 24 (6-10pm).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1881\" src=\"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/article3_nov152018.jpg\" alt=\"Santa Claus Parade - Ontario\" width=\"257\" height=\"141\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Santa Claus Parades<\/h3>\n<p>There are Santa Claus parades in literally EVERY town and city, so we can\u2019t get close to giving even an overview. What we can do, is direct you to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/events.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SFG Event Calendar<\/a> which has loads of options around the province, and have highlighted just a few of the biggies here. Toronto\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/thesantaclausparade.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Santa Clause Parade<\/a> bills itself as \u201cthe Original\u201d, and at 114 years old, it just might be! This massive, not-for-profit event, Nov 18, spreads the magic! Any area that is home to something called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.santasvillage.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Santa\u2019s Village Family Amusement Park<\/a> has gotta excel in the Santa parade category!\u00a0 Santa visits <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discovermuskoka.ca\/?s=santa+claus+parade\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">multiple towns across the Muskoka region<\/a> during November and December before heading back to the North Pole to prepare for Christmas.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1882\" src=\"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/article4_nov152018.jpg\" alt=\"Toronto's Christmas Market\" width=\"257\" height=\"141\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Xmas Markets<\/h3>\n<p>This is another category in which there are lots of options. <a href=\"http:\/\/holidaystreetmarket.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Holiday Street Market<\/a> (Milton) is Ontario\u2019s largest outdoor street market during the holidays with food, marshmallow fire pits, kids\u2019 fun &amp; Santa Claus \u2013 Dec 1 &amp; 8. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/event\/christmas-market\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Grand Hall of the History Museum<\/a> Christmas Market (Ottawa) hosts 80+ vendors over four days, so prepare to do all your gift buying (Nov 30-Dec 3)!\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/bluemountainchristmas.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Blue Mountain Christmas<\/a> (Collingwood), Nov 24\/25 has live music, activities &amp; hundreds of vendors. \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.villagenoel.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Village Nol Temiskaming<\/a> (New Liskeard) has Ice figures, artisans, craftspeople &amp; food, all with a New France theme (Nov 22-24). <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christkindl.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Christkindl Market Kitchener<\/a>, (Dec 6-9) offers an authentic German Christmas market experience with vendors, bands, blacksmiths, live nativity &amp; horse-drawn carriages. And last, but certainly not least, <a href=\"http:\/\/torontochristmasmarket.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Toronto Christmas Market<\/a>, named one of the world\u2019s 10 best Holiday Markets (Fodor\u2019s travel, USA Today etc) , has traditional music, Santa&#8217;s House, a ferris wheel, carousel, life-sized gingerbread house and loads of vendors. (Nov 15-Dec 23 at the Distillery Historic District).<\/p>\n<p>For more things to do &amp; places to stay in Ontario, see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Summer Fun Guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy the holidays!<\/p>\n<p>Shari &amp; Elisa, Publishers \u2013 Summer Fun Guide<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Light up your holiday season! One of the things to look forward to in November and December, regardless of your religion, is how festive the season feels with all the lights and holiday events. Make the rounds and enjoy as many twinkling lights, Santa Claus parades and holiday markets as you can. We all need&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ontario-region"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1878"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3734,"href":"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878\/revisions\/3734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.summerfunguide.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}