I have had the good fortune to go to New York City and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on two different occasions. Both extremely cold occasions – in fact, the two coldest occasions in the last 18 years, but, still. Every so many years my birthday falls on Thanksgiving Day, and seeing the parade in person was something I had always wanted to do.
The first time, it was 2002, and 19 degrees. This was my first time seeing the parade live and one of my first visits to New York City so my mom and I wanted to get to the parade line early to get a front row seat. By 6am we were bundled up and at our spot along the parade route and waited there in the frigid darkness until the sun came up – on the opposite side of the street. Being on the shady side of the street doesn’t help warm you up, by the way. And in fact, really just makes you have bitter feelings towards those on the sunny side. The parade starts in Columbus Circle at 9am, so…
In the ensuing THREE HOURS of wait time, my mom and I:
Realized that those heating pads you put in your gloves and shoes don’t really work all that well at those temperatures.
Called my aunt who lives on Long Island to inquire as to the temperature (no smart phones yet). The answer didn’t make us feel better. The temperature had actually dropped a degree.
Found that it’s difficult to eat crackers while also trying to keep as much as your face covered as possible.
Found some abandoned mail crates to sit on, and feeling like true New Yorkers, commandeered government property for our relative comfort.
Did not use a bathroom.
Discussed various ways to pronounce Duane Reade – a drug store that was across the street from us (I’m not going to tell you. See, you probably spent a short amount of time considering it yourself just now).
Sat really really close together.
Wondered just how dang long it takes for a parade to get from Columbus Circle to the street we were on (this I will tell you. Answer, 20 minutes).
Called my aunt again to inquire as to the temperature. It still did not make us feel better.
During the Parade itself, we discovered that:
Street crews come and swivel the traffic lights out of the path of the parade (who knew!)
The people on the streets watching the parade don’t get to see many performances that people who watch on TV see. While the parade is stopped so that the performer on whatever float is in front of Macy’s at the time can do their number for the television audience, some of the performers on the floats waiting in line just look around at the shivering parade crowd.
The Wiggles went ahead and performed for us. They were troopers.
The skimpy outfits that the dancers wear on camera are not the same outfits they wear along the parade route – at least on a cold day. The dancers for each band were actually wearing warm-up suits as they passed us, but when we saw them on TV, they had taken off the warm-up suits and were performing in their costumes. Imaging how cold the dancers were while marching the parade route always stressed me out as a child.
There are people who run into the intersections before each balloon passes and use a wind meter to check to see if the intersection is too windy for the balloon to pass through at height.
It is much cooler than I expected to see those famous star-shaped Macy’s balloons bobbing down the street as the official start of the parade nears your location.
That how cold it is doesn’t matter once you’ve started watching such an iconic parade for the first time, live.
That it doesn’t matter how iconic the parade is, you will never forget how cold you were.
The second time I saw the parade was in 2013. I was eager to share the experience with my daughters, who, it turns out, don’t really care. My birthday was on Thanksgiving again, and my mom and I decided to go to the parade again. She rented us a room as a birthday gift, a once-in-a-lifetime splurge at the Park Lane Hotel, in a 15th floor room that overlooked Central Park. It was so New York Cool. We could survey the entire length of the park, see the zoo, the pond, the skating rink, and the pathways.
On the night before Thanksgiving, we rode the subway down to where the balloons were laid out, battened down, and being inflated. If you ever get the chance to go to the Macy’s Parade, don’t miss the opportunity to go to Central Park to see the balloons the night before. We got to stand before the giant balloons as they were slowly coming to life, watch little kids exclaim as they saw characters they recognized, smile as we saw old standards from past parades, and wonder what the heck other partially-inflated balloons even were.
So, back to the hotel and up early in the morning to head out to get a spot for the parade. Not quite as early as the time I went in 2002, and that was a mistake. It was very cold and I didn’t want to have the girls wait out in it too long before the parade started, so my mom and I split up; she would go downstairs and find a spot, we would eat breakfast in the room and come down about 30 minutes later. We would meet her on the corner of 6th and 42nd street, just a block from the hotel. Great. I head out with the girls and get to the corner, and don’t see her. A phone call – where are you? Across the street and diagonal from us. Across barricaded streets. You see, you can be at any one of four different corners at 6th and 42nd – almost a fatal flaw in our plan. In an alarmingly short amount of time, the crowd on the sidewalks had swelled to a crushing volume and it took us a long time to fight our way back up the way we came, to a police blockade where pleas to cross were met with a sardonic NYPD cop answer: “Do you KNOW what day it is?”. Point taken. But we did manage to get across and over to where my mom was. Which was out of the sun and under scaffolding on this 25-degree morning. It seems colder out of the sun when its 25 degrees. We waited for about an hour, talking with people around us as the kids got increasingly whiny in the cold. But, then those iconic Macy star balloons came around the corner onto – 42nd street, and they perked up. Then a float passed us and a band. Macy’s employees dressed as clowns came by, another balloon, the turkey float, and by then my kids were done with the whole experience. My youngest, crying, tiny in a large crowd, me trying to hold her and her bulky coat at an uncomfortable angle so she could see, her little feet cold, snot frozen under her nose from crying, and completely unimpressed, was not making for an enjoyable parade watching experience. I forced the kids to stay until the Snoopy balloon, and then headed back to the hotel. My teen was cranky about the whole affair, but our exchange student from Japan had never had this experience before, and so my mom stood with her while I herded the girls back to the hotel room where we turned the parade on the TV. But the cool thing was, if you smushed your forehead against the window of the Park Lane, and looked down and to the left, you could see the parade below you, and hear strains of music from the high school bands. And if you looked further off to the left, out towards the middle of Central Park, you could see the parade line in the distance – so we could totally see Big Bird Balloon coming, and then watch on TV when he got his glamor shot.
It was a little disappointing to be so close to the parade and not watch it live, but on the other hand, I was watching it from a vantage point most people don’t ever have – from above as it made its way past the Museum of Natural History with a view of Central Park. So that was kind of cool. My kids don’t remember this, they tend to not remember most of the times they’ve caused some kind of big glitch in an expensive plan, but I do have pictures, and some great memories of my own. If you’re a fan of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and ever get the chance to see it live, definitely do it! Just dress warm, be prepared to wait, and don’t ask the NYPD stupid questions.
Fifty State Family 