40K people and 15,500 pounds of food at St. John's Christmas parade

Roughly 40,000 people lined the streets for this year's downtown St. John's Christmas Parade on Sunday, and organizers say more than 7,000 kilograms or 15,500 poundsof foodand $8,000 in loonies and toonies was collected.

• St. John's Christmas parade postponed due to foul forecast

GaylynneLambert is the marketing, events and media relations manager with Downtown St. John's, the group that puts off the event.

"Under sunny skies with periods of perfect Christmas snow, the parade made its way through historic downtown St. John's with Santa's hearty 'Ho Ho Ho'delighting the thousands of children who came to see him," Lambert said Sunday afternoon.

After beingpostponed by one weekdue to bad weather on Sunday, Nov. 27,Lambert was unsure how the parade would turn out.

"It was our first cancellation that we'd had in 12 years, so we were a little bit nervous," she said.

"We lost some of our entries because people had other commitments and they couldn't make it the second time, so the parade was a little bit shorter. But overall, there were some lovely floats and some high spirits from the marching bands."

Lambert said parades held in other communities on the northeast Avalon on Sundaymay have also contributed to the smaller crowds in downtown St. John's.

Along with the marching bands,dancers andfloats, volunteers from Newfoundland Powercollected food and cash donations for the Community Food Sharing Association throughout the parade.

Lambert said the amount of food collected valued over $37,500 in total.

We probably had 10,000 [fewer]people this year.- GaylynneLambert

"They did pretty well, down a little bitfrom previous years," she said.

"But that will reflect the fact that we probably had10,000 [fewer] people this year."

To cap off the whole event, Santa flew in on a helicopter to ride his sleigh at the end of the parade and will now work on answering the "sleigh full of letters collected by his special elves from Canada Post," said Lambert.

Downtown St. John's was not the only host to a Santa Claus parade on Sunday. The towns of Torbay, Portugal Cove-St. Philip's and the City of Mount Pearl held events as well.