NOTHING SAYS THANKSGIVING LIKE GIANT BALLOONS

New York, NY
Thanksgiving, November 24, 2011

When I was a little girl, I used to love getting up on Thanksgiving morning to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was amazing to see all the giant balloons floating above the streets. Thanksgiving marks the day in the US when we give thanks for all the original settlers were able to accomplish, for the peace they supposedly formed with the native Indians, and the meal they shared with said Indians. The Thanksgiving parade officially marks the beginning of the holiday season, and what kid doesn’t look forward to that every year??

When I moved to New York City, I was always tempted to go to the parade, but the idea of getting up really early to cram myself in with all the other souls along the street barricades and stand for hours waiting for the parade just didn’t seem worth it to me.

Luckily for me, these days I’ve got a job with great perks! Last year my mom came in for the holiday, and my boss was able to score a spot along the parade route for the two of us from the vendors of the holiday movie Yes, Virginia. Their office building was right along the parade route and allowed us the perfect balloon viewing, as it was seven flights up. The balloons literally floated right by the windows. It was lovely because we were inside, warm, able to watch the performances being broadcasted from Herald Square, and had food, drinks, and a convenient bathroom, yet I still wished I could experience it from the ground level.

Cut to: Thanksgiving of 2011.

This year, the vendors of the newest Smurf movie offered our office tickets to sit in the grandstands at the beginning of the parade. Awesome! (The grandstands are bleacher seats along Central Park for the first few blocks of the parade.) I was able to get two tickets, which Miriam was very excited about. We still had to get up pretty early, but we were going to have seats! No need to cram ourselves in like sardines.

We soon discovered we had something else to be excited about—the New Orleans dance troupe, 610 Stompers, were going to be marching in the parade! In case I haven’t mentioned this before, Miriam was born and raised in New Orleans, so we get pretty excited whenever we see anything NOLA-related (NOLA = New Orleans, LA). The 610 Stompers are a goofball group of men who decided to challenge the fact that all dance troupes that march in the various Mardi Gras parades always seem to be pretty, young girls. These guys dress in cut-off, acid-washed jean shorts, sweatbands, red, shiny jackets, and moustaches. They are NOT the world’s greatest dancers, which is exactly what they are going for. They are pretty hilarious. We couldn’t wait to see them live.

But let’s back track a little. One of my favorite new traditions is to go up to the Natural History Museum on the Upper West Side the day before Thanksgiving, when they start blowing up the balloons. The balloons are on the streets by the museum and Central park. You can get right up close to them, and it’s really neat to watch the process. They start allowing viewers in around 3pm until late evening. I recommend going as early as possible, as it gets REALLY crowded later in the day. I wasn’t able to go this year, but here are pictures from the year before.

Kung Fu Panda

A cop directing pedestrian traffic into the viewing area

Horton the Elephant, my favorite balloon-- retired after last year.

On the subway with our tickets!

On Thanksgiving Day, we awoke at 4:30am, discovered it was going to be a pleasantly mild day, weather-wise, grabbed Spuddy Buddy, our travel-ready couch potato, and hopped on the subway to the Upper West Side.  The tickets indicated that the seating would open at 7am, so we were aiming to get there a little before that. The moment we stepped off the train a throng of people bombarded us. Early risers were already sardined on the non-bleacher side of the street. It was 6:30am and the parade wasn’t starting until 9am! These people were going to be squished together for quite some time.

We were finally able to squeeze ourselves out of the crowd and got in the grandstand ticketholder line. The grandstands opened up fifteen minutes later, and off we went! As we were being ushered down the street, we saw friends of ours already seated—they were chaperoning their son’s class, who had all gotten tickets to the parade. We kept moving and, luckily, scored front row seats! Very exciting. The one problem was that we sat right over a subway vent, so every time a train went by below us, cold air blew up through the vent, right up Miriam’s pant leg. Brrrr!

From our front row seats.

The grandstands

 We got comfortable, since we had about two hours before the parade actually started, and watched as the clowns arrived to entertain the crowds. There were 800 clowns total, so if you are the type to be freaked out by clowns, steer clear of this parade. They started handing out balloons to all the kids, much to my displeasure—I have a decades-old fear of balloons—more specifically, the popping of said balloons. It stems from my childhood and having one explode in my face as I blew it up. But Miriam and, more importantly, Spuddy Buddy, love balloons, so they had a good time. Spuddy Buddy even got to meet a clown! He was very excited.

Surrounded by balloons...

Spuddy Buddy and his new clown friend

The crowd got revved up when the marching band opening the parade started lining up right in front of us. The band members entertained us by running up and down the street, getting us to do the wave and doing call-and-response cheers.

Then the parade got moving. The balloons floating above us were larger than life! It was really cool. My one disappointment was that they retired Horton the Elephant, so he wasn’t flying this year.

The start of the parade

Sonic the Hedgehog

Miriam, Spuddy Buddy, and Spongebob Squarepants

Because the weather was decent, the celebrities were all actually riding on their floats, which was cool. When the weather is bad, the celebrities tend to wait it out closer to Herald Square and jump on before their float is televised. Some of this year’s entertainers included Avril Lavigne, Neil Diamond, Straight No Chaser, the guys of Oceanspray Cranberries, the cast of Sesame Street (we got a tad giddy over that), American Idol winner, Scotty McCreery, and Mary J. Blige.

The cast of Sesame Street

We even had a couple celebrities hang out in front of our bleacher section before heading down to do interviews—Al Roker, who conducted the interviews, was followed by two of the Grimm cast members and 30 Rock’s Jane Krakowski. That was fun.

Al Roker with the guys from Grimm

Then it was time for the 610 Stompers! We made a sign and wore our New Orleans Saints (American football team) Santa hats in order to get their attention, and it worked! They came running by, screaming the Saints’ signature cheer, “Who Dat!” and slapping us five before busting out their stellar dance moves. Here’s the video from the NBC telecast of the parade at Herald Square. 

After the 610 Stompers, we settled down to enjoy the rest of the parade, getting doused with confetti, watching the other colorful balloons floating by, and taking advantage of our awesome spot for great picture opportunities. Spuddy Buddy even got to meet the big balloon Clumsy Smurf. He was nervous but handled it like a trooper.

Mobile Azaela Trail Maids curtseying

Santa!

Santa finally came sailing by on his float, marking the end of the parade and the beginning of the holiday season. We all cheered and waved and then started making our way out of the grandstands. I was able to sneak in behind the parade and get my picture with it, which was fun. 

Then we started making our way to the train station with all the other revelers. When we saw the amount of people heading to the trains, we decided we’d wait a bit. There was no way we’d be able to squeeze ourselves onto a train with all those other people. We opted to find a place to grab a bite to eat—somewhere warm with a bathroom. The lines for the bathrooms at the various Starbucks we passed were, literally, out the front doors, so we didn’t even try there. The difficulty was finding a place actually open on Thanksgiving Day—not too easy when it’s a national holiday where most businesses are closed.

We ended up finding a cute little restaurant off Broadway called Café Luxembourg. Because it wasn’t on the main drag, it wasn’t overly crowded. The food was yummy (I had Eggs Benedict), and the place was toasty warm. We took our time eating and then made our way to the now empty subway.

Once we got home we cooked up a small Thanksgiving dinner, enjoyed the Packer/Lion football game on TV, and then prepared for the midnight madness of Black Friday shopping…We don’t need to go into that…Let’s just say we probably won’t be doing that anymore.

I really must say that seeing the parade from the ground level is much cooler than being inside a building, even with the colder temperature and the lack of bathrooms. Being on the street allowed us to be a part of the excitement. We could hear all the marching bands, see all the fun details of the floats, and could scream and cheer along with our thousands of neighbors. It was a very neat experience, and hopefully, I’ll be able to share the experience with my own kids one day.

Happy Holidays!