Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

Thanksgiving night mail from Turkey Jim. Gobble. Gobble to you (My Turkey impression) on this Thanksgiving night . I turned my TV on this morning to the Macy's Thanksgiving parade and it looked great in High Definition (the new TV set I bought to replace the one that died Halloween night).
The Macy's parade is interesting to we New Orleanians because it is a wholly different style of parade. Many of the floats have been built by New Orleans float makers because we are among the world's best at doing that, but how the parade looks, how the floats are used, the way it is structured is entirely different from a New Orleans style parade. Our parades in New Orleans are participation events for the spectator who catch goodies thrown from the floats. We are also highly undisciplined in our approach. The floats and a bands in our parades tend to be less structured and...uh....like me...sloppy.
The Macy parade is strictly a viewing event. Spectators line the streets and quietly watch. they don't eat, laugh, play music and in general are not as relaxed as we are. But that is not a condemnation of the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. It is very professional, pretty and orderly I like it as well.
The Macy's Thanksgiving parade has been on going for too many years to count, but this is the 80th edition. It is a grand spectacular put on by Macy's Department store to introduce the holiday Christmas shopping season. The parade is shown on TV from New York City's Manhattan, with cameras set up at a beautifully decorate Rockerfeller Center for the TV viewer. The route is short and "tickets" must be bought to view it (Our New Orleans parades are free and sometimes called "the greatest free show on earth"), The Macy's parade is clearly more of a TV centered event. Each float and band stops briefly as it performs for the viewers on TV and the crowd watching at the venue. The floats have many celebrities (who often promote their movie or event with a segment of it in their performance). Bands play as they stop and 25 huge helium filled balloons (One is pictured below) of SpongeBob, Snoopy, Superman and many other fictional characters pass by.
This year the balloons were flown lower because of gusty winds. The good thing about what part of the parade I watched on my TV???? It has to be that I did not see one cell phone addict in the entire parade. For that I REALLY give thanks this year....