Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade By Allison Bowser

By Allison Bowser 

Thursday, November 27th is the day of 2025’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Set to happen from 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM in NYC, and air on NBC and Peacock. This tradition started back in the 1920s (specifically 1924). This 101-year-old tradition has held the hearts of many and shaped the season for years. The history of this event spans over the past few decades. 

Roaring Twenties: 

November 27th, 1924, was an important day for history, though not in the traditional war, tragedy, resolution sense, as this was the day of the first Macy’s Day Parade. At 9 AM, Macy’s held a parade that overlapped with church services but was earlier than the Syracuse vs Columbia university football game. The newspaper ads which had advertised the parade promised parade-goers “a marathon of mirth.” At the end of the parade, Santa Claus made an appearance to usher in the Christmas spending season, where he was crowned the “King of the Kiddies.” With floats, professional bands, and live animals borrowed from Central Zoo, this celebration had an audience of over 200,000 people. 

This parade was loved by many, encouraging the celebration to become a tradition. However, the zoo animals originally featured in the play did not like the journey, and the roars and growls frightened young children. That is why by 1927 the live animals were replaced with less-scary character balloons. This feature quickly became the signature attraction of the parade, being a spectacle, many can still enjoy to this day.  

Popularity Grows: 

In the ‘30s, the parade continued to grow in popularity and in 1934, the first Mickey Mouse balloon was shown. In 1932, the festivities began to being broadcasted on local radio stations in NYC, this lasted until 1941 (when the US entered WWII). Due to WWII, rubber and helium were in high demand for the war effort. This meant that the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was suspended until after the war ended. In 1945, the radio broadcasts began again as the parade began to being held again. 

In 1947, the parade became known nationwide as it had been featured in the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street. The film had included footage of the festivities from the year prior. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade aired on TV for the first time in 1948. Around the same time the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade begun airing on television, the radio broadcast stopped. 

In 1958, the first celebrity performer, the Benny Goodman sextet, joined the parade. With technical and logistical difficulties, the parade began transitioning to lip syncing in 1964. This was due to the problems that came with attempting to preform live music on moving stages. 

2013 – Mrs. Takacs: 

With the honor of being able to interview someone who had gone to a Macy’s Day Parade in the past, it paints a more vivid picture on what the event is like. Mrs. Takacs had said that she had seen every single parade on TV with her mom, and that her and her mom had always said that one day they would go together. Finally, this wish came true in 2013, as Mrs. Takacs surprised her mom with a trip to New York City to see the parade. The night prior to the parade, the ballons are inflated in Central Park. Mrs. Takacs had recalled it as being rainy, yet she and her mom were still ecstatic.  

The day of the actual parade, Mrs. Takacs recalled needing to get up at four a.m. just so they could get a spot at the front of the crowd. She stated that it was better in person than on TV, and that people from all over the world were gathered to see the parade. “We saw the parade round the corner, and we just started crying… It was like a dream come true.” To not lose their spot, they took turns leaving to go eat at a nearby restaurant. After the Parade, the whole street is blocked off. People can walk around the normally busy road, Mrs. Takacs even recalled there being confetti everywhere. Then, everyone moved to the Macy’s store to get a Christmas ornament as a souvenir to commemorate the event. 

In 2019, here was a switch in who lead the parade. While the New York City Police Department Highway Patrol typically leads it, the cast of Sesame Street lead the parade in honor of the show’s 50th year anniversary.