A very country Christmas: Rockwood Farmers' Santa Claus Parade returns
A very country Christmas: Rockwood Farmers' Santa Claus Parade returns
Rockwood celebrated a bright holiday tradition – with a country twist – on Thursday night.
The 30th Rockwood Farmers’ Annual Santa Clause Parade of Lights rolled through the village and hundreds of people lined the street to watch agricultural machines, decorated with Christmas lights, slowly drive through the community.
The event started in 1993 as a way to show off farm equipment used locally and was originally organized by the 3rd and 4th Line March Blahs Committee.
“The parade took three hours,” Walter Swanston, one of the parade founders, said. “We went all over town. It was quite a show.”
An agricultural machine in the Rockwood Farmers’ Annual Santa Clause Parade of Lights in former parades. (CTV Kitchener)
“Nobody disliked it, and so from there on we said: ‘Hey, we better do it next year,’” he explained.
This year’s parade featured 24 machines including combines, manure spreaders, sprayers and a tree cutter.
“The people that are watching, in most cases, don’t know what the machines are and they all wonder who is driving them,” said Swanston. “So we have the family name on each one plus what the machine is.”
“Couple manure spreaders,” said parade helper Bruce Miller. “There’s often manure spreaders, but there’s a great big one this year.”
An agricultural machine in the Rockwood Farmers’ Annual Santa Clause Parade of Lights in a former parade. (CTV Kitchener)
Ontario Provincial Police and the local fire department were also in Rockwood to help with traffic and keep people safe at the side of the road.
“Quite a few thought we should stop after 10 years, but even the municipality said: ‘Hey, you guys are doing such a great job and it’s the biggest shopping night of the year for the town of Rockwood, so keep going.’ So we did,” Swanston said.
Float owners said decorating the machines isn’t an easy task. For some, it takes around two days to make the transformation.
“I think it’s a bit of a competition between some of them,” Miller said. “They like to see who can put out the biggest float. But at the same time they really enjoy it and it’s a promotion of agriculture in the village of Rockwood.”
It's a competition that residents look forward to each year – even if they are still quite young.
An agricultural machine in the Rockwood Farmers’ Annual Santa Clause Parade of Lights in a former parade. (CTV Kitchener)
The Ontario Steam and Antique Preservers Association participated for their second time this year. They said it’s important people see the machines that are used to help feed people around the world.
“Where our food comes from is actually something people don’t think about,” said Joan Corradetti. “We have to save our farms, save our green spaces and support our local farmers.”
After years of continued success the parade is now being passed onto the Rockwood Farming Community Committee, who plan to keep the tradition alive year after year.
An agricultural machine in the Rockwood Farmers’ Annual Santa Clause Parade of Lights in a former parade. (CTV Kitchener)
The Biden administration is considering a plan to shoot down a large Chinese balloon suspected of conducting surveillance on the U.S. military, by bringing it down once it is above the Atlantic Ocean where the remnants could potentially be recovered, according to four U.S. officials.
The Arctic air that descended on the Northeast on Saturday brought dangerously cold sub-zero temperatures and wind chills to the region, including a record-setting wind chill of minus 108 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 78 C) on the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire.
Convicted murderer Daniel Jolivet, in prison for the past 30 years, has maintained his innocence since the day he was arrested. W5 reviews the evidence he painstakingly assembled while behind bars. W5's documentary 'Buried Evidence' airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on CTV.
The massive white orb drifting across U.S. airspace has triggered a diplomatic maelstrom and is blowing up on social media. A look at what's known about the balloon crossing the U.S. and what isn't.
The oldest preserved vertebrate brain has been found in a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish skull that was removed from an English coal mine over a century ago.
A River Canard, Ont. woman is on a mission to identify several unknown people in a handful of old photographs she said she found in a box inside her attic. She said she discovered the pictures and postcards while decluttering her home as part of her New Year’s resolution, noticing many date back to the mid 1940s.
Parents of students with special needs are speaking out about a decision by the Simcoe County District School Board to change transportation options starting Monday.
An investigation that lasted almost two years has resulted in moose hunting violation convictions for six people and a lodge in Red Lake in northwestern Ontario.
Convicted murderer Daniel Jolivet, in prison for the past 30 years, has maintained his innocence since the day he was arrested. W5 reviews the evidence he painstakingly assembled while behind bars. W5's documentary 'Buried Evidence' airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on CTV.
The owner of Radical Gardens, a restaurant in Timmins said she's experienced nineteen robberies over the last eight years; with the most recent one taking place in the early morning hours Friday.
A spokesperson for the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) says Metrolinx began cutting down historic trees at Osgoode Hall in Toronto on Saturday before the Ontario Superior Court could hear an injunction to prevent their clearing.
Joey Votto has been coming to the Annex Chess Club (ACC), just north of Bathurst and Bloor streets, every week for a few months now, according to Supol.
Residents from Quebec to Newfoundland and Labrador are waking up this morning to more extreme cold weather. Emergency officials warned people to seek shelter and monitor for frostbite if they had to be outside overnight, as the temperature across much of Eastern Canada was expected to feel like -40 C to -50 C with the wind chill.
Another property reportedly belonging to a family member of Tony Accurso was the target of an arson attack in Laval early Saturday morning. The Laval fire department responded to a call at 3:22 a.m. about a fire at the building located at 1410 Jaffa Street in the Saint Rose district in the northern part of Laval.
The first North Atlantic right whale to be entangled in connection to Canada’s lobster fishery in over five years has been successfully rescued by marine mammal rescue responders in the United States.
WINNIPEG -- An Indigenous organization is spearheading efforts to develop a system that could make it easier to flag when a person experiencing homelessness is missing.
Winnipeg police released a new image of a 31-year-old woman who has been missing since early last year on Friday in the hope it may generate new information on her whereabouts.
Alberta's high court is being asked to overturn a review board decision relating to the stabbing deaths of five young people at a Calgary house party on the grounds the former provincial justice minister interfered.
A man who took part in four traffic-stopping protests in Metro Vancouver in an effort to save old-growth forests has been given a conditional sentence and six months' probation by a provincial court judge.
Vancouver Canucks faithful have seen it all during yet another disappointing season - and several say they're frustrated not only with the on-ice performance, but with a lack of answers from the team's front office.
An agricultural machine in the Rockwood Farmers’ Annual Santa Clause Parade of Lights in former parades. (CTV Kitchener)
An agricultural machine in the Rockwood Farmers’ Annual Santa Clause Parade of Lights in a former parade. (CTV Kitchener)
An agricultural machine in the Rockwood Farmers’ Annual Santa Clause Parade of Lights in a former parade. (CTV Kitchener)
An agricultural machine in the Rockwood Farmers’ Annual Santa Clause Parade of Lights in a former parade. (CTV Kitchener)
