The three big winners of this year’s Santa Claus parade float categories were Canadian Tire in the commercial division, École St. Patrick High School among the school entries and the NWT Broomball Association in the non-profit category.
Christina Silzer, an educator at École St. Patrick High School, was “pretty proud” of the students for prevailing among the 17 parade floats in total as they travelled along Franklin Avenue, 53 Street and 49 Street to a theme of Rock ’n’ Roll Christmas.
“They wanted to show our school spirit for the Santa Claus parade, so a couple of staff and myself, we let them decorate the floats,” said Silzer. “We had students from different clubs and a lot of gritty students that had met the week before the parade (to decorate) the float.”
Covid-19 provided an interesting challenge for the team at St. Pat’s.
“Like, everyone was masked up and distanced, and it was a little chaotic, but we had a lot of fun,” said Silzer. “We made the most of it.”
The NWT Broomball Association received an extra bonus for its win, earning the $500 Roland Gosselin Ho Ho Ho Award. Gosselin’s family provided the funds in honour of the longtime Yellowknife resident, who played the role of Santa Claus in past holiday events.
For those looking to get a head start on next year’s floats, the theme for 2022 will be Christmas in the Tropics.