For anyone who has ever tried to wrap a basketball – or even a big screen TV – the process can be painful.

And the concealment can come out looking more Frankenstein than festive.

But what if you had to wrap an entire GO bus for the holidays? How much Scotch Tape and patience would you need to pull that veneer off – or rather, on?

For the many festive events taking place across November and December, Metrolinx recently wrapped a double-decker GO vehicle in a cheerful veneer of vinyl. The painstaking process fascinated us, so we thought you’d like to see it unroll and unfold in this time-lapse video.

Now that you’ve seen what it takes to wrap a GO bus in festive good cheer, a few facts about the holiday makeover:

• The GO bus wrap took almost six hours to complete
• A crew of nine people from an Oshawa-based installation company did the work
• The vehicle was wrapped one panel at a time, with both sides of the bus being covered simultaneously
• That’s between 50-55 panels in total
• Roughly 116.2 square metres of wrap was used to cover the whole bus – everything except the passenger doors and the top of the bus

The wrap took place as part of GO Transit’s Happy Traveldays Campaign – a celebration of the holidays aboard our vehicles and a way to encourage more ridership over the winter months.

It’s already been part of several local holiday parades in Niagara and Toronto this past weekend. And the transit agency’s mascot GO Bear, along with brand ambassadors, are now preparing to roll out to more community gatherings in the weeks ahead.

They include:

• Markham Santa Claus Parade on Saturday, Nov. 23, from 11 a.m. to12:30 p.m.
• Weston Santa Claus Parade on Sunday, Nov. 24, from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
• North Etobicoke Santa Parade on Sunday, Dec. 1, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
• Whitby Santa Claus Parade on Saturday, Dec. 7, from 10 a.m. to noon.

And as the bus will be making regular service runs throughout the winter season, customers will be able to see the work from inside out. If so, raise a glass of cheer that you don’t have to try to fit it under a tree, let alone try to find a paper roll big enough to cover it.

For GO Transit’s schedule across the holidays, please click here.