Santa’s going to need a bigger sleigh.
The blitz by Port Moody Police Department (PMPD) to deliver Santa and Mrs. Claus to all the city’s neighbourhoods that concluded last night (Wednesday) was so successful, the department’s towering tree in the atrium of its headquarters on St. Johns Street has been overwhelmed by donated food items and toys. All of them are being delivered to Share family and community services.
PMPD's community relations officer, Const. Jason Maschke, said the six visits over three weeks, in which a small parade of volunteer elves and police vehicles — one of them towing a sleigh transporting the honoured marshals — went better than expected. Even as hard, cold rain fell on most of those evenings.
Maschke said as word of the effort spread through the community and on social media, the festive flotilla was resoundingly greeted by excited kids of all ages, from toddlers delaying their bedtime for Santa’s visit to seniors rousted from their living rooms by the clamour of sirens and squeals of delight. He said residents in one neighbourhood along Cambridge Way even lined the curb to sing Christmas carols as Santa passed.
“It was like The Beatles coming to town,” he said.
Maschke said while the initiative was intended as a kind of rolling Christmas mini-parade that would move through each neighbourhood in moments, the visits inevitably turned into a bit of a street party as families streamed out on to their lawns and sidewalks to welcome the visitors and deliver their donations. He said the excitement and generosity of residents touched everyone involved in the effort, whether it was a collective of kids who’d pooled their efforts to deliver a wagonload of items, or the senior who clutched a single can of tuna in her palms as if it was a Fabergé egg.
Even Santa — a.k.a. Sgt. Ian Morrison, who’s in charge of the department’s community relations section and grew a white beard especially for his role — was affected by the smiles and laughter of the kids and adults as the motorcade passed.
“I thought what I saw had disappeared from the world,” he said. “I don’t know who had more fun, the kids or us.”
Maschke said he’s already thinking of next year’s blitz with — you guessed it — a bigger sleigh properly made of wood.
“It started as a small idea,” he said. “Hopefully it will take up a nugget of real estate in a child’s mind that they’ll forever remember when Santa Claus came to their neighbourhood.”
