Thanksgiving

In previous years, we have enjoyed the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade from afar. Our parade tradition has involved heading to the Upper West Side to see the giant parade balloons inflated the night before Thanksgiving. Then, Thanksgiving morning we would sleep in and watch these same balloons march down Central Park West/Broadway from the comfy perch of our couch. In the past it has always been too early, too crowded and too cold to get up to make it to the actual parade. In my opinion, the parade was akin to being in Times Square on New Year's Eve. I am convinced that some things really are better experienced from your living room.....

But, in 2009 we shook things up a bit. Some good friends encouraged us to actually see the parade in person. They provided us with their parade 411 and promised to brave the cold and crowds with us, so we decided to give it a try.

As you can see, Owen was absolutely mesmerized by the parade action. Ok, so this picture was taken before the parade started :). The children and I met up with Marc at around 7:45 on Central Park West. We were grateful for the existence of iphones during that 1 hour+ wait. Marc left the house at 5:00 am to save us a spot.

We had great seats. We were right up against the crowd barricade. It would have been impossible to have been any closer. Go dad! Our friends provided us with yummy hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls- which made the wait seem much more bearable.

Hooray! The parade had finally begun! At around 9 AM the parade started. The first big balloon was Spider Man. Owen is typically a fan of Spider Man. Not that he has seen any of the movies or cartoons or whatever it is that makes "Spider Man" popular with little boys.....he just saw several boys dressed up as this super hero last Halloween, and became an instant fan.

So, you can imagine his delight when he spotted Spider Man slowly creeping down the street toward him. "A Spider Man balloon mom! A Spider Man one!!" However, as the balloon drew near, his excitement transformed into total terror. By the time Mr. Spidey was directly above us, Owen was experiencing a full blown panic attack in Marc's arms. He wasn't ok until the balloon had fully paraded by and was completely out of sight. Luckily, for the remainder of the parade he managed to remain relaxed and enthused- I guess Dora the Explorer and Kermit the Frog are less menacing.

Eva and Madeline were in total parade heaven. They loved the clowns, the marching bands, the confetti, the huge balloons, and the fancy Santa Claus float.

Will we do it again next year? We will see what the weather man tells us. There are limits to my parade love....like rain/snow and freezing temperatures. But, now that we know it isn't totally logistically impossible to enjoy the Macy's Day Parade, this may just end up a Chenn tradition.