The world’s largest parade celebrates 95 years

Thanksgiving morning, 9:00 a.m. in NYC or on NBC, you can’t miss it. Whenever my family gets together at my grandparent’s house, for some reason, we always end up watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Someone puts it on the telly in the background while everyone prepares the meal. Periodically during preparation, someone actually paying attention will yell, “Look, (insert anyone’s name) it’s (insert any of the 100+ characters represented in the parade)!” Cue everyone turning to the telly to see what they are talking about, regardless of whether they know the character or not. A strange and unplanned tradition, the parade lives on.

This parade, more massive every year, started in 1924 as a marketing scheme. Macy’s had just expanded to cover an entire city block, and they were beginning to open regional locations. To celebrate, the store hosted this Thanksgiving morning parade. By making the theme Christmas, the goal was to attract holiday shoppers into the store, creating an earlier Christmas season. They weren’t the first department store to use this strategy, but they were the ones to win in the long game.

The tradition began with just the store employees, in bright and festive costumes. They were surrounded by a few floats, professional bands and live animals from Central Park Zoo. The finale was Santa Claus being crowned “King of the Kiddies.” The first parade drew a crowd of over 250,000 people. Macy’s declared the parade annual soon after. The only exception to that announcement was the cancelation from 1942-1944 for World War II during the rubber and helium shortages. After resuming, the parade became national in 1947, when it was featured on “Miracle on 34th Street.”

Here is what to expect for the upcoming 2021 parade. The line up will include 15 character balloons, 28 floats, 36 inflatables, 800+ clowns, 10 marching bands, 9 performance groups and many musical performers. New balloons include Ada Twist, Grogu, Pikachu & Eevee and a new Ronald McDonald, among other original Macy’s mascots. New floats will include Peacock TV’s Girls5eva cast and Disney Cruise’s inflatable ship featuring Jordan Fisher. The usual floats will be there, featuring Miss America Camille Schrier, Chris Lane, Andy Grammar, Jimmie Allen, Darren Criss, aespa, Foreigner and of course, Santa himself. I am most excited to see the casts from Broadway’s “Six,” “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” and “Wicked.” Macy’s also announced that Carrie Underwood is the headliner for the parade, but the information is not on the website yet.

If you decide to watch it, NBC, Telemundo and Peacock TV will be covering it from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Thanksgiving Day in all timezones.

Happy Thanksgiving!

By Annelise Jacobs