Leah Laughlin
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was held on Thanksgiving morning for the 98th year. The parade consisted of artists, balloons, and floats. This year, Newtown High School Physical Education teacher, Kathleen Davey, held a balloon in the parade. Davey was asked to hold Bluey for the 2.5 mile parade. She walked in the parade with a former student and their husband.
“I’ve always wanted to do the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, just to see what it was like and what it would be like to hold a balloon, and just to do that was fabulous,” Davey said.
“We had to go get our costumes at a quarter to five in the morning, and as we were walking down 34th street, there was nobody there,” she said.
She was able to see the two announcers who are on TV, Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, practicing for the show.
“You know, ‘Here comes such and such floats, here comes this band,’ There was nothing going on, they were just practicing.” Davey said.
She also expressed a hectic story from the end of the parade. There were so many floats and balloons, that keeping everything organized is no small task.
“ And then we had a float as we were rolling up Bluey at the end of the parade, one balloon was behind us was SpongeBob, and the way they had it organized, SpongeBob actually flew over us. As we were rolling we had to duck and SpongeBob was like five feet over our heads. It was really cool.”
“The night before we went to the inflation. That was really cool. We thought we saw some celebrities, as we were walking through New York that Wednesday night. Don’t know if it’s true or not, but we like to think we did,” Davey shared.
Many people love the parade, as it is such a well-known tradition. NHS freshman Ava Lombardo was able to share her experiences about the parade.
“Usually my whole family watches it,” Lombardo said.
Lombardo doesn’t watch the parade every year, but when she does, her whole family gets together to enjoy a nice Thanksgiving morning. Her favorite part of the parade is the Rockettes.
Tons of fans were shocked to hear this year that the parade would not be the same without Al Roker who had to rest due to some medical complications with a blood clot. He had not missed a parade in 27 years, so this was a shock to many. The President and his wife wished him well over social media.