Retailer Macy’s hosted its 99th Thanksgiving Day Parade featuring marching bands, giant balloons and a holiday sleigh navigating through New York City’s lofty valleys.
Parades went ahead in the United States despite the threat of high winds on Thursday.
In the lead-up to the annual tradition, the National Weather Service warned of possible winds of up to 35 miles per hour, equivalent to 56 kilometers (35 miles) per hour.
According to parade rules, powerful gusts of wind as high as 55 km/h (34 mph) could have halted the event, while winds as low as 37 km/h (23 mph) were possible.
Those precautions were adopted after the 1997 edition of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, when severe weather caused a balloon representing the children’s book The Cat in the Hat to fall into a light post.
The street lamp broke, hitting the spectators watching the parade below. A 34-year-old woman suffered head injuries and spent nearly a month in a coma.
As of 2025, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has been canceled only three times, from 1942 to 1944, in an effort to conserve materials during World War II. It was never canceled due to weather.
This year’s edition features 34 giant, helium-filled balloons, including new entries like Disney character Buzz Lightyear, video game character Pac-Man and plumber Mario from the game Super Mario Bros.
Cynthia Erivo, star of the Wicked film series and the singers of the Netflix hit K-pop Demon Hunters made appearances as the parade’s 28 floats took to the streets.
Macy’s estimates that each year 3.5 million people line the streets to watch the parade, and more than 50 million watch the broadcast of the event.
The parade stretched four kilometers (2.5 mi) across New York City, passing through Central Park West and 6th Avenue and ending in front of the Macy’s flagship store.
The widely watched event has also been a magnet for protests, with Palestinian solidarity protesters briefly blocking the parade route last year and in 2023 to draw attention to Israeli human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank.
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