Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade 1947

MIRACLE ON  34TH ST

That is my favorite Christmas movie. I love the black and white version. On Thanksgiving, I get up early and get Tom the Turkey in the oven.

Hint: turn the bird on the it's breast and cook it upside down. It doesn't look great but the breast will be tender and moist. You can turn it right side up for the last 45 minutes. 

 I put the parade on so I won't miss Santa Claus. It is my first tradition. I have to see Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade's Santa Claus and then the Holiday Season has officially started for me. 

I thought that you might like to see what the parade looked like in the olden days.

This is Edmund Gwen (doesn't he look like Santa?) Miracle on 34th St.

 

The turkey’s bathing in brine, the relatives are preparing their political arguments and the children are parked in front of the television, watching a larger-than-life Pikachu pursue a too-big-for-his-britches SpongeBob SquarePants. 

Since the first balloon debuted at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1927, balloon-spotting has been as much a Thanksgiving tradition as donning elastic-waisted pants.

 But those gargantuan rubber characters—which can require as many as 90 handlers, a number that still hasn’t prevented run-ins with lampposts and the occasional bystander injury—have been the source of nearly as much Thanksgiving drama as have dinner-table debates.

1924: The first Macy’s Parade takes place along a six-mile route beginning at 145th St. in Harlem. The floats are designed with a nursery-rhyme theme in mind—Little Miss Muffet and Little Red Riding Hood included—to match the store’s holiday window displays. Although the parade is held on Thanksgiving, it is billed as a Christmas Parade, kicking off the beginning of the holiday season (which helps explain Santa’s appearance on the final float). Instead of balloons on the parade route, real animals, borrowed from the Central Park Zoo, entertain the crowds.

The first Santa Claus.

1927: The first giant helium balloon, Felix the Cat, makes its debut at this year’s parade, replacing the real animals, which had proven to be less than enthused about their participation—as were some frightened young spectators. Because parade organizers in these early years have no plans for deflating the balloons, they allow them to float away. This decision proves to be one that requires rethinking, as many of the balloons pop shortly after release.

Uncle Sam Joined the Parade 1940.

1942-1944: Like many major cultural events, the annual parade takes a hiatus during World War II. After the supply of natural rubber from Southeast Asia was cut off at the beginning of the war, the U.S. faced a major shortage. Consequently, the Macy’s balloons are deflated and donated to the government to support the war effort. The war also sees an increased demand for helium, which is required to inflate Navy patrol blimps, limiting its availability for less dire purposes.

1946: The parade is televised locally for the first time. The following year, the parade would be broadcast to a national audience on NBC, the same network that broadcasts it today. Television, of course, would come to be the way by which millions of Americans experienced the larger-than-life balloons, if only on a smaller-than-life screen.

1957: An already drenched crowd, watching the parade in inclement weather, gets even wetter when Popeye the Sailor’s hat fills with water and spills onto spectators. Though the balloon’s hat is remade to prevent a repeat occurrence, the same thing would happen five years later when rainwater that had collected in Donald Duck’s hat gave bystanders an impromptu cold shower.

This is a Turkey 1960

Smokey The Bear 1927

The Tin Man From the Wizard of Oz  1939

Remember Betty White and Lorne Greene

 Superman has never been the same!

 The First Snoopy balloon  was added in 1968, Snoopy first appeared in 1968 as the World War I Flying Ace (sans the red dog house). He’s had many iterations since the launch, as an astronaut, ice skater, with Woodstock in 1988 for the first time and as a jester. Since 2006, he’s had an updated flying ace outfit

It's not Christmas until Santa comes to town!

 Let's not forget the Christmas Tree with the tinsel that was painstakingly placed on the tree one strand at a time.