It was a blistering Friday night. The subzero winds were blasting away at the corner of Eglinton and Dufferin. I was in my car, but I had to see what was happening. They had put up a wall of light-coloured wood along Eglinton, but I could see a white tent in front. Were they opening the LRT?
I was with my 7-year-old. We parked the car on Vaughan behind the Fairbank station and fought through the arctic wind to get to the LRT plaza. The wall of wood turned out to be vendor stalls; there was a band playing, and a small crowd around a man dressed as Santa Claus.
I mean Kente Claus.
This wasn’t the opening of the LRT, but something equally as surprising.
A Caribbean Christmas Village was set up on the coldest night of the year. And the festival isn’t just a one-night affair. It goes all week long right to Christmas Eve.
The next day, the freezing winds were biting again, and outside my shop on Dufferin I could hear steelpans. The arctic winds and the sounds of the Caribbean were clashing in my brain. And not in a bad way. I just never felt the sting of the cold with the sounds of warmth before.
A Caribbean winter festival of this magnitude is a first for Toronto, and it must be a first in the country. It was a first for me.
Quebec City has its Bonnehomme festival in the winter. In Toronto, we now have a Caribbean Christmas festival in the winter, right here in Fairbank.
It’s worth braving the cold, just to say you saw it. Surprises like this are good for the brain.
And get a picture with Kente Claus while you’re there.
Toronto’s first ever Caribbean Christmas Village is presented by The Afro Caribbean Farmers’ Market.
