Flashback: Santa shocked kids when he wore white suit in 1933 Detroit Thanksgiving parade

This account of Detroit’s Thanksgiving Parade ran on page three of the Free Press on Friday, Dec. 1, 1933.

At first that fellow everybody was cheering Thursday morning looked only vaguely familiar.

There was no doubt that he was important, for they put a parade on in his honor and when he last was seen he was wading knee-deep through kids.

Now any fellow who is hero-worshiped like that must be a somebody. Of course, when you get older your eyes aren't so good and it is hard to recognize folks you once knew.

And when he loomed up in the of the J. L. Hudson Co.’s Thanksgiving Parade, wearing a dazzling white suit, it was a little hard to place him. Of course, he looked a lot like that fellow we used to know years ago. A fellow with the same long white whiskers and cherry red face who would pop in once a year and make himself welcome.

But that fellow wore a red suit and used to come down chimneys. This fellow was coming down Woodward Avenue through Grand Circus Park. The last we heard of him years ago was that he might not come back our way again since he was a great traveler and hung out some place in the north.

But he did come back, as real as ever, and not a day older.

‘Where’s the red suit?’

Recognition was easy when he got closer and you could hear the name. Why, even the smallest kid in the crowd knew him at once, yelled to him and made you feel a little foolish for not knowing that it was Santa Claus.

Everybody knew him. "Lookit!" a small boy yelled to a smaller one who didn't need the instructions. "There's Donner and Blitzen."

There was a familiar ring to that. Donner and Blitzen!

Why, they were the same pair of leading reindeer he used to have. The pair that pawed the snow off the roof while the old gent was busy with the stockings. And as they passed and their driver came into view you couldn’t have a doubt about who it was.

His name was a unanimous yell, and even the cops loaned a bass voice to the chorus.

"Where's his red suit?" a young cynic in the crowd asked his sister. "In the book he wears red suits."

"He puts it on when he makes all his calls on Christmas," his sister explained. "He's just taking orders now. He wears his white Sunday suit and not his work clothes when he takes orders."

Excitement starts to grow

So that accounted for all the fanfare. That was why Second Boulevard and Vernor Highway and Woodward Avenue were lined with all of Detroit's population under the age of 12.

Early Thursday morning you might have guessed that something vastly important was going on and it wasn't concerned with the Thanksgiving turkey. Downtown streets were filling with a crowd of elbow-high people.

That is, they were elbow high to the policemen who lined the street. They filtered in and out under the arms of the baffled cops who couldn't figure out what to do about it. And all of them were looking northward, the direction of the polar palace where the old boy has a workshop. There was the sound of distant music. The excitement started to grow.

A few small boys, caught behind a wall of taller people, started scaling the handiest long-limbed person. Then an escort of motorcycle policemen, whose appearance always signals the arrival of someone important, came down the street, widening a path for the parade.

Along came the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe. There was a rhinoceros whose jaws waggled. There were clowns and comic policemen who made faces at the real cops fighting a losing battle: to keep the spectators on the sidewalks.

Most of the crowd still was looking northward, with time out now and then to cheer the bands and passing animals. Their attention was on that roar of acclaim farther up the street.

A glowering doodle-bug

Then along came the men with huge, comic heads. They got the attention of the boys and girls. They shook hands with those who were brave enough to stick out their hands.

They also made great gaps occasionally in the solid row of youngsters as there would be a general scattering at their approach. The polar bear got a pretty good greeting for he comes from the same part of the world that Santa Claus does. Then along crept the great doodle-bug, snorting smoke. It took courage to stick through that. The doodle-bug is a great serpent sort of thing that sways across the street and glowers at you.

Little girls turned pale, small boys flinched, but they all stuck it out. One boy, stared right in the eye by that fearful thing, sniveled. His brother, who no doubt will grow up to be at least a general, charged up to the doodle-bug, pulled up the side and revealed, of all things, some pant legs. The sniveling ceased.

And then the roar down the street grew louder.

Everybody was looking in the direction of the approaching shout. The three little pigs, madly pursued by the well-known big bad wolf, nearly got by undetected.

Then, all of a sudden, there was Santa Claus high on his float. His reindeer were poised in front of him.

He was waving. And everybody was calling to him to make sure that he would notice they were there and be sure and remember them this Dec. 25.

The policemen were licked, and they knew it. Hundreds of youngsters, just to assure Santa Claus that he was welcome, poured into the street and lit out after his float.

The Bubble House — its chimney spouting balloons — was cut off from the rest of the parade as Santa Claus' friends, who are quite a few, jumped in behind him and followed him right up to the doors of Hudson's store.

He made a last bow, waved his hands to everybody and disappeared into the store.

And there was downtown Detroit filled with kids who, strangely enough, were talking about Christmas and reminding their fathers to be sure to remind them to remind Santa Claus about remembering them.

They were just a little excited and it was a bit difficult to make out just what they were saying.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Santa surprised kids in the 1933 Detroit Thanksgiving parade