One of the most iconic events around the holidays would be the Macy’s Day Parade, am I right? I think at one point or another we have all got up and sat in front of the TV to see the parade. Like New Years Eve in NYC, the Macy’s Day Parade on a list of things we’d like to do someday.

Now, going to stand in Times Square for NYC has never really been on any list of mine. I mean, standing in Times Square for hours on end – the real question is “Where do you pee?!”. I’m not fighting with the crowd, nor getting peed on. The Macy’s Day Parade on the other hand, well that is doable.

In 2005, I had a childhood friend that was going to school in the NYC area and I few down to see her, spend some time in the big city and to check out the parade! I think we were both pretty excited. The night before the parade, we stayed with a friend of hers in the Bronx. This wasn’t my first trip to NYC, it was my first trip to this borough.

Thanksgiving morning, we woke up early and headed down to Manhattan to grab our spot, via the subway of course. We arrived early, it wasn’t packed but there were people there. We ended up right around the corner from the front of the Macy’s building, two rows back from the gate on the side of the street, next to a man who was blocking small children from seeing the parade. Karma will come back to get ya buddy. If you had access to a building – those were the prime viewing spots!

The parade, awesome. The floats, the hot air balloons, just like you see on TV. The only quirk, they wouldn’t perform when they were in front of us. I’m not sure if it was because we were relatively close (within 3 blocks) from Macy’s or if they just didn’t perform during the parade until they were on stage? A few did, most didn’t. Ah well – I still got to see Garfield and some celebrities. Here are some pictures.

Celebrities:

Rhianna, Natasha Bedingfield and Carrie Underwood.

Hot Air Balloons!

Bands, floats and more!

AH Giant heads!

LOVE the turkey! Gobble, Gobble!

YeeHaw!

Loved this jungle float! Look at all the details!

NYPD

Even though Ronald McDonald has always kind of freaked me out – who wouldn’t want to drive one of these two cars?!

After the parade, we walked around the city and tried to take it all in. That will have to be in another post.

 

May we all be thankful for the people in our lives, what we have been blessed to have over the past year and what is to come.
Happy Thanksgiving Ya’ll!