Riding The Santa Bus

Dear Knittah,

In Winnipeg at Christmas time, there is a bus called the Santa Bus. It is a bus that goes around Winnipeg, and all cash fares collected go towards the Christmas Cheer Board. The Christmas Cheer Board is an organization that delivers hampers of food and presents to families in need at Christmas. (Noricum volunteered as a driver for the Christmas Cheer Board once many years back... she hadn't been driving long, and it was an *icy* day... veeeeery nerve-wracking! However, she got lots of hampers delivered and made it home safely. Now that she has more experience driving, she'd be willing to try again, but doesn't currently have a car.)

Anyway, back to my story. On Monday, Noricum and I got on the bus after school like usual. The bus had reindeer on the side (Noricum figured it was a festive advertisement), and the bus driver was wearing a Santa hat (Noricum figured the driver was feeling festive). Noricum put her fare in the box, then took a seat and started working on her sock in progress. About five minutes later, she *finally* clued in to the fact that she was riding the Santa bus! (She can be a bit slow sometimes, but I like her anyway.) Funnily enough, even though Noricum has lived in Winnipeg most of her life, and started riding the bus way back in elementary school, this was also the first time she had ridden the Santa bus. We got to have that experience together. :)

After a few more minutes, Noricum got up the guts to pull out her camera and take a few photos.


You can see one of the reindeer in the first photo, plus Christmas Cheer Board ads above the windows; the second looks fairly normal.

Although this was the Santa bus, the driver wasn't a very cheery elf. She seemed rather in a hurry, and kept honking at drivers who threatened to cut her off, and also at jaywalking pedestrians. (Even though the bus was still half a block away from one set of jaywalkers... though she seemed to speed up to close that distance!) Noricum decided not to ask the driver to pose for a photo. Instead, she decided to try to get a photo of the outside of the bus after she got off:

...but she was too slow! (That bus sure was in a hurry, and Noricum's camera is a bit slow, especially when the flash is needed.)

Anyway, it was an interesting experience, and we thought you might like to hear about a bit of Winnipeg tradition. (The Santa bus has been running for 23 years now!)

Cheers,
Swatchy