On his third day in Canada, Alfred Iannarelli’s aunt bundled him up to take him to Toronto’s Santa Claus Parade.

It was 1953 and the parade was held on Saturdays back then. The new Torontonian witnessed the spectacle after making the 11-day voyage via ship from Italy to Halifax, then by train on to the city.

“The magic of it all amazed me,” Iannarelli says, recalling his early years at the parade.

This weekend, Iannarelli will finally walk away from being the creative lead of the parade. It’s the end to his 50-year career behind the scenes of the scintillating Christmas showcase and a fitting send-off for a love affair that began 66 years ago, on that Saturday.

“I will be retiring,” he says over the phone from Santa’s secret workshop (located in northwest Toronto) as he works on the finishing touches to this season’s exhibits. “I just want to get this one done, then we will worry about what happens afterwards.”

Iannarelli’s craftsmanship can be found in every one of the record-setting 34 floats set to roll out of the workshop, which he coyly addressed as the North Pole, ahead of the 115th edition of the parade.

“This is my 50th parade, so there isn’t a lot of stress,” says Iannarelli, the undisputed longest-serving helper at the workshop, where the “magic of Christmas” is carved, sculpted, painted and decorated into the grand exhibits unveiled during the parade.

Iannarelli started as an intern in the summer of 1969 — nearly 16 years after seeing his first parade — was hired in 1970, and became general manager in 1983, a position he’s held since.

“I wanted to go to arts school and then I was offered a job,” Iannarelli says of the decisive moment. “I never left.”

“I have to keep the Christmas spirit alive for as long as I can,” he says.

Iannarelli, 69, says a creative team of about 15 artists are working on this year’s floats, including a feature addition marking the Raptors’ NBA championship success.

“There’s nobody better than us,” he says when asked to compare Toronto’s parade to those elsewhere.

“What we have in Toronto is the best Santa Claus parade in the world,” he says.

New York?

“No!” he says, emphatically. “They’ve had the same floats since 1960.”

Iannarelli recalls an era when Eaton’s, then a department store juggernaut, abruptly withdrew its sponsorship, cancelling the parade in 1982.

“Eaton pulled the rug out from under us in August of 1982, with about 80 per cent of the parade done,” Iannarelli remembers.

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But public outcry ensued and the parade was resurrected as a not-for-profit by George Cohon, founder of McDonald’s Canada and Russia, who rallied about 20 prominent businessmen to give $25,000 each in exchange for a float in the parade, which ran on time.

“Nobody wanted to see it die,” Iannarelli says.

He estimates the parade’s budget was somewhere in the region of $500,000 in 1982. This weekend, it will cost about $2 million.

Iannarelli started working with the parade when the department store was king. Eaton’s in Toronto and Macy’s in New York used the parades to draw potential shoppers to their doorsteps, literally.

“They would use the parade to start the Christmas season,” he says, remembering how Santa would end the parade then walking into Eaton’s Queen Street store, trailed by a flock of children and parents.

One thing that hasn’t changed much is the way the floats are made. Every single piece of detail is built from scratch.

“The way we did things in the 1970s is pretty much the same as we do now, ” he says of fashioning the designs out of materials such as styrofoam, papier-mâché and wood, with a splash of acrylic paint and some sparkles.

“Everything is done by hand,” he says. “I hope future generations don’t lose the love of magic and make-believe.”

The Santa Claus Parade is set to begin Sunday at 12:30 p.m. at Parliament Street at Bloor Street E. The route will take Santa west across Bloor to University Avenue, then south to Wellington Street before cutting back across downtown to end at St. Lawrence Market. CTV will also broadcast “The Original Santa Claus Parade” Sunday at 4:30 p.m.

Jason Miller is a breaking news reporter based in Toronto. Reach him on email: jasonmiller@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @millermotionpic