Jarvis, ON — In a move experts are calling “genuinely unhinged,” a childless woman was spotted attending the Jarvis Santa Claus Parade entirely of her own volition, raising questions about what the hell is wrong with her.
Witnesses say 32-year-old Amanda Martin arrived solo at 4:30 a.m. – eight and a half hours before the parade started – donning a custom elf costume she’d commissioned to match Jarvis’s “Candy Cane Lane” theme, complete with hand-stitched red and white striped leggings and jingle bells sewn into her shoes.
“I had to stand beside her,” said parade attendee Laura Gibbons, visibly disturbed. “She kept opening her elf jacket and offering me a candy cane from the inside pocket, like some kind of pervert. She told me this was her eighteenth parade this year and that she’d already hit Brantford, Cambridge, and Waterdown. She had a laminated itinerary in a binder. A binder, with tabs. She said if she left right after Santa, she could make it to Guelph by 4 p.m., then swing through Acton on her way home. It was sick.”
Martin, who used all fifteen of her vacation days this year attending small-town parades across Southern Ontario, reportedly owns seven different Santa-adjacent costumes, each tailored to specific parade themes. Sources confirm she was banned from the Lindsay parade last month after an incident organizers are calling “The Mrs. Claus Meltdown.”
“She showed up dressed as Mrs. Claus, but the local bakery owner was already Mrs. Claus that year,” said Lindsay parade coordinator Tom McNeil, still shaken. “Amanda tried to argue that there could be ‘multiple Mrs. Clauses in the extended Claus cinematic universe.’ When we told her to leave, she started crying in the Tim Hortons parking lot and had to be escorted away by an off-duty volunteer firefighter.”
The annual Jarvis Santa Claus Parade – whose budget was described by town officials as “loose change from the lost and found” – featured nine floats, most of which were local business owners waving from their F-150s.
“It’s less of a parade and more of a slow-moving traffic jam,” said one onlooker as the float for Gary’s Discount Carpets wheezed past, blasting Mariah Carey through a Bluetooth speaker that was dropped in a sink. “The only reason I came was to see my kid walk by.”
“I find parades charming,” Martin later admitted in an exclusive interview, gesturing to a calendar on her phone showing twenty-three remaining parades before Christmas. “I don’t know what the big deal is; they’re public events. I’m well within my rights to attend.”
Experts aren’t buying it. “This isn’t a Disney Adult situation,” said Dr. Rebecca Cho, a holiday behaviour specialist. “Disney Adults are upsetting, yes, but at least there’s a capitalist infrastructure designed to enable their obsession. Disney wants their money. These small-town parades don’t even want her presence. This woman is clearly masochistic, and possibly experiencing a mental health crisis that presents as aggressive, weaponized whimsy.”
Parade organizers were horrified when they realized Martin showed up purely for the fun of it. “It’s frankly disturbing,” said parade coordinator Vince Delaney. “We throw this thing together for the kids and their long-suffering parents. That’s it. No well-adjusted adult attends these recreationally.”
Attendees worry Martin’s behaviour is a slippery slope. “What’s next?” asked Gibbons. “Rec league baseball games? Toddler time at the public library? She told me she’s thinking about getting into ribbon-cutting ceremonies in the off-season. Someone needs to intervene.”
When reached for further comment, Martin said she was “disappointed by the negativity” and insisted her hobby was “no different than following a band on tour, except the band is Santa and the venues are towns with one stoplight.”
At press time, Martin was seen spending her lunch break scouting prime viewing spots for next weekend’s parade in Port Dover.
