Happy Thanksgiving! If you're like me, memories of Thanksgiving morning are inseparably tied to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This year marks the 100th anniversary of this nostalgic New York City parade, which began in 1924.
The first parade was initially known as the Macy's Christmas Parade and was staged to promote holiday sales and welcome Santa to New York. The floats were based on nursery rhymes to match the nursery-thyme theme in Macy's Christmas window display. They featured Mother Goose favorites such as the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, Little Miss Muffet, and Little Red Riding Hood. Macy employees dressed as clowns, cowboys, and sword-wielding knights.
A menagerie of animals on loan from the Central Park Zoo--including bears, elephants, camels, and monkeys--offered a circus-like atmosphere as four bands played along the route. Bringing up the rear was a float bearing the guest of honor--Santa Claus--sitting in his reindeer-driven sleigh on top of a mountain of ice.
In 1927, organizers rebranded the parade as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The zoo animals were replaced with large balloon animals. The first balloon was Felix the Cat and was inflated with air, not helium. Balloon handlers carried Felix on sticks along the parade route. The first Mickey Mouse balloon entered the parade in 1934 and resumed in 1945 running through 1951.
A year later, Macy's began inflating the giant balloons with helium and releasing them into the air after the parade. Anyone lucky enough to find a balloon after it floated back to Earth could exchange it for a prize. The practice ended in 1932 when a young pilot sent her plane diving to capture a giant balloon floating 5,000 feet up. The balloon wrapped around the plane's wing, causing it to spiral toward Earth. The instructor took the controls at the last minute and landed the plane safely.
From 1942 to 1944, Macy's canceled the parade. The balloons used a lot of rubber and helium, both of which were in short supply during the war, allowing Macy's to contribute 650 pounds of rubber for military use.
Before 1946, the only people who got to witness the Macy's parade were residents of New York and those who traveled there, while others listened to radio coverage of the parade. In 1948, the parade was televised for the first time. Those lucky enough to own a television set invited friends and family to see the parade, albeit in black and white.
Marching bands had been part of the parade since the beginning; it was not until 1958 that the first celebrity performances were added. Technical and logistic problems made early attempts to perform on a moving stage difficult.
While the parade route has been scaled back from six miles to two-and-one-half miles, the size of the parade itself has blossomed with dozens of balloons, marking bands, celebrities, and the New York City Rockettes. Although it is now called the "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade," Santa Claus remains the showstopper and his arrival in Herald Square still rings in the Christmas season in New York.
On behalf of my family, I'm sending good wishes to you this Thanksgiving! Good food that fills your table, good health as you work hard, and good times with family and friends. May you have all the best delights in life.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Friends, as a Petticoats & Pistols Filly, I am happy to share this wonderful series, Christmas Stocking Sweethearts, with you.
Christmas Stockings made by a devoted music teacher for her beloved students connect each story in the series. A classic Christmas carol adds a romantic layer to the stories, and of course, each piano student--all grown up--finds his or her true love.
My Upcoming Release...
What is a boy to do when he is trying to play matchmaker for his father? Seven-year-old Danny Stone is working hard to help his lonely widower father find love again. When a pretty, new teacher moves to Angel Falls, Danny believes she is the perfect choice. But so far, his matchmaking attempts have not been successful until a snowstorm hits and strands Miss Holly at their farm.
Fleeing an ill-fated relationship, Holly Ross accepts an interim teaching position in Angel Falls, Kansas. During the first week, she is knocked down by a stranger, and his rude behavior raises her annoyance when he insists he saved her life...not that she believed she needed saving. When she discovers Jesse Stone is the father of one of her students, she vows to give the man a wide berth. But when Danny leaves behind a scarf belonging to his late mother, she makes a decision that will alter her Christmas plans…and her life.
Since his wife’s passing, Jesse Stone has no interest nor the time for romance. With a herd, a ranch, and a seven-year-old son to raise, the last thing he needs is ungrateful criticism from a woman he saved from being hit by a wagon. His irritation grows when he discovers Holly Ross is the new teacher his son keeps praising…and the feeling is mutual. So, she is the last person he expects to see at his door at the start of a blizzard.
