Hawkesbury has done kind of a reasonably good job in past years at putting together local Events but, historically, the small city has nothing like the other many, even smaller nearby communities, which have been hosting local summer fairs and farmer’s markets for generations. Vankleek Hill, for example, has been putting together major annual Events like The May Show, the Festival of Flavours, Trash & Treasure, and the Farmer’s Market, for decades and even, in the case of the summer Agricultural Fair, over 180-years. Hawkesbury really has had nothing like those Events in its past.

But that might be changing. It takes a huge investment in time, volunteering, and the right funding in the right places, by the right people, and Hawkesbury’s City Council has been kind of doing that over the past decade. To give credit where credit is due, successive city governments have put more attention, focus, and money towards organizing Events that can be made into long-term annual Events. And it all coincides with their years-long plan to renovate and expand Pioneers Park in Hawkesbury’s downtown [link].

Place des Pionniers [link] now hosts Events such as the ‘Festival Country-Blues de Hawkesbury’ [link], and the ‘Festival Multiculturel de Hawkesbury Multicultural Festival’ [link] [link], which are bringing thousands of people to downtown. Then there are also Events like ‘Halloween on Main Street’, the ‘Hawkesbury Poutine Feast’, and the ‘Bike Night à Hawkesbury’ [link] that have have been repeatedly successful over the past few years, but then there are Events like the ‘Hawkesbury Auto Expo’ — which has brought more than 5000 people to Main Street for 28-years, but was cancelled this year due to a new focus by their Executive, a lack of volunteers, and a lack of money for insurance [link].

To keep these newish Events going into the future, the problem is going to be in maintaining or even increasing the current level of government funding, and government participation, to give local investors and especially dedicated volunteers, time to take over production, and also private investment to create a sustainable structure for the organizing of these and other Events.

…anyway, I guess we’re actually all here for the photos of the Hawkesbury Santa Claus Parade — so, Merry Christmas and all of that stuff.

You know what… I really don’t know if this should be considered to be the “most wonderful time of the year”… I honestly don’t know why we call it that, I mean, it’s really f*cking cold, there’s no sun after 4:30pm, and every year I have to look forward to spending about a third of my total personal bank account on stuff the kids will never touch / play with / remember two days after the Holidays are over, because it’s just not Roblox related. So, Fa-la-la-la-la-la, Le la-la-la to everyone.

So… yeah. To see the photos of a totally real Santa Claus, and the parade celebrating this fantastic time of year, go ahead and click on the first photo to get the carousel going. I hope you enjoy them… it’s good to be productive again. Merry Christmas Season, and Happy Holidays from all of us here at VKHPhotos… which is actually just me. Next up: Vankleek Hill’s Santa Parade.