Thanksgiving Blues
I feel really bad. It seems like this year Thanksgiving is slipping by me. I can't believe that I'm thinking about Christmas in 28 days, while Thanksgiving is TOMORROW! On Thanksgiving you don't normally (Well, we don't normally) give presents, and you don't spent weeks shopping for this holiday (Unless you want to make the perfect Thanksgiving meal that are only possible on TV).
Like I said, this Thanksgiving is slipping by very quickly. We aren't having Thanksgiving with my Mom's side of the family this year. My Aunt and Uncle (And my two cousins) moved today. Tomorrow, they are going back over to the 'old' house to clean it out for the newcomers. Since they're cleaning all day, they probably won't have time to fix a Thanksgiving dinner and come over and visit. I'm sure that they'll be thankful for their new house! The only 'Thanksgiving thing" we're doing, is tomorrow, my family is going over to my Grandma and Grandpa's house for a Thanksgiving dinner with my Dad's side of the family.
It suddenly hit me this afternoon. Tomorrow is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! I'm not sure if we even get it. Well, I'm sure we do, because we get NBC, but I'm not sure about the clearness factor... I went online to see the schedule (Click on "Join the Fun!" then go to "Parade Information". Once there click on "Parade Line-up". That simple!) and I found NO ONE that I was seriously interested in watching. Like last year, I wanted to see Carrie Underwood sing with the Pillsberry Doughboy (Boy, I wanted to see that one!). I don't usually think about the hard work that goes into making this parade. Especially the BIG balloons!
The history of Macy's Helium Balloons:
The very first Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in 1924 didn't have balloons. Instead, real live animals were borrowed from the Central Park Zoo.
Large balloons weren't used in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade until 1927. Felix the Cat was the first ever balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Macy's Day parade balloons were inflated with air the first year that they were used. Each year after that, helium was used to fill the huge parade balloons.
The first year that Macy's used helium balloons they released them at the end of the parade for a big finish. The balloons accidentally burst. The next year the Macy's parade balloons were redesigned so that they would lose helium slowly and float for several days.
Originally, the huge Thanksgiving Day balloons were released at the end of the parade. The grandiose balloons had attached address labels. The lucky people who found and returned the balloons received Macy's gift certificates for $100 or some other prize.
The 1941 Macy's Day parade occurred just weeks before the start of World War II. It featured a prominent Uncle Sam helium parade balloon. When rubber became in short supply because of the war, the famous Uncle Sam balloon was donated by Macy's to support the war.
The Thanksgiving Day parade balloons require massive amounts of helium. For example, the Jimmy Neutron balloon needs 12,300 cubic feet of helium to be properly inflated. By comparison, a 10 feet diameter hot-air balloon needs 475 cubic feet of helium.
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