The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Worksheet Download

Look at the giant balloons floating down the street! This is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It has floats and bands.

The first parade had bands but no balloons. In 1924 workers from Macy's marched in costumes in New York City. Animals borrowed from a zoo marched with them!

In 1927 giant balloons took the place of the zoo animals. Millions of people watch on TV. The parade ends with Santa Claus and then the holiday season begins!

Can you picture a big parade with real zoo animals in it? In 1924, workers at Macy's store in New York City marched with bands. They wore costumes and rode on floats, which are rolling stages.

Walking right behind the floats were real animals, too! Workers borrowed them from the Central Park Zoo in the city. In 1927, giant balloons took the animals' place and floated high above the street.

Up high, those balloons now float over crowds lining the streets. Macy's says millions more people watch it on TV at home. Santa Claus rides last, and that kicks off the holiday season!

Wow, the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was put on by store workers in costumes! In 1924, in New York City, many of those workers were immigrants, people who had moved from other countries. They marched with bands, floats, and animals from the Central Park Zoo.

Zoo animals were a hit, but in 1927 giant balloons floated in instead. Helpers called handlers hold ropes and walk beside each balloon to keep it steady. Some balloons are as tall as buildings, so everyone has to look way up!

Helium, the gas that lifts the balloons, was needed for World War II. So the parade paused from 1942 to 1944, and rubber was saved for the war too. Since the 1940s, people have also been able to watch it on television.

Television helped it grow, and today millions watch at home while millions more line the streets. The last float carries Santa Claus, and when he rolls by, the holiday season begins. Not bad for a parade that began over a hundred years ago with store workers in costumes!

Imagine you are on a chilly New York City sidewalk on Thanksgiving morning, hearing drums boom and horns blare. Suddenly, a giant balloon floats above the buildings while walkers far below hold its ropes. This is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, one of the most famous parades in the country!

That famous parade began in 1924, when workers at Macy's department store in New York City put on a parade. Many were immigrants, people who had moved to the United States from other countries. They marched in costumes with floats, bands, and animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo!

Zoo animals were exciting, but in 1927 giant balloons took their place. Each balloon is filled with helium, a gas lighter than air, so it floats above the crowd. From 1942 to 1944, the parade took a break because rubber and helium were needed for World War II. When the war ended, the parade and its balloons came back.

Back came the balloons, and soon television carried the parade into living rooms too, starting in the 1940s. Today, millions watch on TV, and millions more line the streets of New York City. The very last float carries Santa Claus, and for many families his arrival means the holiday season has begun. Not bad for a parade that began with store workers, costumes, and borrowed zoo animals!

It is a chilly Thursday morning in New York City, and the sidewalks are packed with people in hats and mittens. Far above their heads, a giant balloon bigger than a school bus bobs between the skyscrapers while teams of handlers steer it with ropes. Drums thump, trumpets blare, and colorful floats roll down the street. This is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, a tradition for many families on Thanksgiving morning.

That tradition began with a much smaller, much furrier parade. In 1924, workers at Macy's department store, many of them immigrants who had moved to the United States from other countries, marched through New York City in costume. Floats, bands, and animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo joined the fun. Imagine walking down a city street beside a real zoo animal!

Those zoo animals did not stay for long, though. In 1927, giant balloons took their place, and because they float high above the street, people in the back rows could see them too. Why do they float? They are filled with helium, a gas that is lighter than air.

Helium turned out to matter in a much more serious way. During World War II, the country needed rubber and helium for the war effort, so the parade was skipped from 1942 to 1944. That meant three Thanksgivings with no giant balloons floating over the city. The parade returned in 1945, after three years of waiting.

Once the parade was marching again, it soon reached far beyond the city streets. It has been on television since the 1940s, and Macy's says millions of people watch at home while millions more line the route. The parade ends with Santa Claus, whose arrival starts the holiday season. Not bad for a parade that began with workers on foot and a few borrowed zoo animals!

Here's a puzzle for you: how did a parade that began with animals borrowed from a zoo turn into one famous for gigantic balloons floating above the skyscrapers? Every Thanksgiving morning in New York City, marching bands play, dancers twirl, and colorful floats roll down the street while crowds bundle up in coats and hats. The balloons are the real showstoppers, so big that teams of handlers must hold ropes to steer each one. To solve the mystery, we'll follow the clues back to a department store.

The first clue is that store, Macy's, whose workers staged a parade in 1924. Many of them were immigrants, people who had moved to the United States from other countries, and they marched through the streets in costumes. They brought along floats and bands, and they even brought animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. Imagine marching down a city street beside a zoo animal while a crowd cheers, which is just what those workers did!

Zoo animals, though, did not stay in the parade for long, because giant balloons replaced them in 1927. Instead of walking, the new stars floated high overhead, held by handlers on the ground. Today's balloons are filled with helium, the same light gas that lifts party balloons. Did you know a balloon bigger than a house can drift down a street simply because helium is lighter than the air around it?

Helium, the gas that makes the balloons rise, also explains why the parade once took a break. From 1942 to 1944, during World War II, the country needed rubber and helium for the war effort, so the parade was skipped. That meant three Thanksgivings passed without marching bands or balloons in the streets of New York. The war ended in 1945, and the parade returned that year to march once more.

Once the parade was back, television carried it into living rooms, and it has been on TV since the 1940s. Today, millions of people watch from home, and millions more line the streets of New York to see it in person. The very last float carries Santa Claus, and his arrival tells many families that the holiday season has begun. So the puzzle has an answer: a parade that began with store workers and a few borrowed zoo animals grew into a celebration that millions look forward to.

Think the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has always been about giant balloons? Think again! Picture a chilly November morning in New York City, where marching bands thump their drums, glittering floats glide past, and balloons as tall as buildings bob above the crowd. Teams of handlers steer each balloon with long ropes, like sailors guiding a ship made of air. Yet the very first parade had no balloons at all, and that surprise is only the beginning of its story.

That story begins in 1924, when the marchers were not famous performers but workers from Macy's department store in New York City. Many of them were immigrants, people who had come to the United States from other countries, and they wore costumes as they walked alongside floats and bands. Instead of balloons, the parade had live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. Can you imagine stepping outside on a holiday morning and spotting zoo animals on a city street? The crowds that lined the streets in 1924 saw exactly that.

Those zoo animals did not stay for long, because in 1927 giant balloons floated in to take their places. Helium is a gas lighter than air, which is why a balloon filled with it can drift over a crowd instead of sinking to the street. A balloon never gets tired or hungry, and it can be spotted from blocks away. In the first years, the balloons were simply let go into the sky when the parade ended. Today they are carefully deflated and packed away, ready to float again another year.

Packing balloons away for a year is one thing, but for three years the whole parade was packed away. During World War II, rubber and helium were needed for the war, so the parade was skipped from 1942 to 1944. Even a beloved tradition can wait when a country asks people to share what it has. When the war ended, the parade returned, and soon a new invention carried it far beyond New York. Television cameras brought the parade into living rooms in the 1940s, so families far from the city could watch from their couches.

Those living rooms have multiplied over the years: according to Macy's, millions of people now watch on television, and millions more bundle up along the route. The parade ends with Santa Claus, and for many families his arrival signals that the holiday season has begun. To me, that is what makes the parade matter: it gives neighbors and strangers a shared morning of wonder, whether they celebrate Thanksgiving with a feast, a quiet day, or not at all. Few events get so many people looking up at the same time. Not bad for a parade that started with store workers, some costumes, and a borrowed zoo.

Few parties in America have a guest list like this one: according to Macy's, millions of people line the sidewalks of New York City to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and tens of millions more watch from home. Picture it rolling past: giant balloons drift overhead like friendly clouds while handlers on the street hold their ropes. Floats glide by with performers waving, and marching bands thump out tunes that echo off the skyscrapers. Spectators stamp their feet in the November chill and cheer as each new wonder appears. Then, at the very end, comes the sight everyone has been waiting for: Santa Claus, waving from the final float and officially opening the holiday season.

Santa may close the show today, but he was part of it from the very start, back in 1924. That year, employees of Macy's department store in New York City pulled on costumes and marched through the streets. Many of the marchers were immigrants, and Macy's says they wanted to celebrate with the kind of lively festivals they remembered from the countries their families came from. Along with floats and bands, the first parade featured animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo, so imagine bumping into one of those on a city street!

Zoo animals made a splashy debut, but they didn't stay for long. By 1927, giant balloons had replaced them, and a new kind of star floated above the crowds. Unlike an animal, a balloon never gets frightened by a noisy crowd, which makes it a steady performer on a busy street. In the late 1920s, balloons were even let go into the sky at the end of the parade. What lifted them was helium, a gas lighter than air that would soon matter far beyond parades.

That helium, along with rubber, became precious in the 1940s, when the United States was fighting in World War II. Rubber and helium were needed for the war effort, so the parade was skipped in 1942, 1943 and 1944. For three years, the streets stayed quiet and no giant balloons floated between the buildings. When the parade returned in 1945, it showed that a cheerful tradition can pause for a serious reason and then begin again.

Once the parade rolled again, television was ready to carry it far beyond the sidewalks. The parade has been broadcast since the 1940s, which means families far from New York City could watch the same balloons at the same moment. Before television, only people standing along the route could see it; afterward, the audience grew to tens of millions, according to Macy's. Today the parade is really two events at once: the one on the street, with its drumbeats and chilly air, and the one on the screen, with its close-ups. For many families, turning on the parade has become a morning habit.

Habits like that depend on hard work behind the scenes, since each giant balloon needs a team of handlers holding ropes to guide it down the street. Wind can push a huge balloon around like a kite, so balloons may have to fly lower, or stay on the ground, when gusts are strong. Marching bands, meanwhile, arrive from many parts of the country to play for the crowds. And no matter what rolls past first, Santa still rides last, just as in 1924. Not bad for a parade that began with store workers, a few costumes and some borrowed zoo animals.

On Thanksgiving morning in 1924, New Yorkers who stepped outside saw something they could hardly believe: a live elephant plodding down the street while a brass band blared behind it. The animals were on loan from the Central Park Zoo, and walking alongside them were costumed employees of Macy's department store. Picture the parade today and you will see towering balloons, rolling floats, and marching bands stretching for blocks through Manhattan. Yet the basic recipe of music, spectacle, and a crowd packed along the curb has barely changed in about a century. So why would a store's workers invent a parade, and why has it lasted? Historians and writers have offered more than one answer.

The first answer starts with the marchers themselves, since many of them were immigrants. In this version of the story, they wanted to mark an American holiday with the kind of festive street parade they remembered from their home countries. The march began in Harlem and wound south to the store's main building at 34th Street, a trek of about six miles. Imagine walking that far in a costume on a November morning, with live animals plodding beside you. Santa Claus came last, a detail that would become the parade's signature. Seen this way, the parade was a gift from neighbors to neighbors.

A skeptic would quickly add that a gift can also be an advertisement. Macy's was a business, the route ended at its doorstep, and the parade arrived just as the busiest shopping season of the year was about to begin. By this reasoning, the parade was a clever way to draw a crowd and put the store at the center of the holiday season. Both explanations rest on real evidence, and neither cancels the other out. A store can be generous and strategic at the same time, and a crowd can enjoy a show without caring who paid for it. Either way, the plan worked well enough that the parade returned the next year and then the year after that.

Returning every year meant topping the last show, and by 1927 the zoo animals had given way to something even bigger. Anthony Sarg, a puppeteer and designer who also created Macy's window displays, designed the giant balloons that debuted that year. One often-repeated explanation for the switch is that live animals could frighten children and were hard to manage in a crowd. Balloons solved that problem and added a spectacle of their own, rising above the crowd like slow-moving buildings. In the earliest years, organizers even let the balloons float off into the sky at the end of the parade. Today, by contrast, teams of handlers hold ropes to steer each balloon along the route, and the biggest ones stand several stories high.

Letting a balloon drift away seems almost reckless today, especially since the materials used to lift and build balloons later became precious. In the early 1940s, the United States needed rubber and helium for World War II, and the parade was skipped in 1942, 1943, and 1944. Giving up a beloved event suggests how seriously people treated shortages in those difficult years. The parade returned in 1945 and has been held every year since. The pause was short, but it came when the tradition was less than twenty years old. By then, a newer invention was already widening its audience far beyond the sidewalks: television.

Television, which began carrying the parade in the 1940s, did what no sidewalk could: it carried the parade into living rooms. Today, millions of people watch on screens, and the organizers say millions more line the route in person. The two audiences experience different parades: the crowd on the curb feels the drums and the November chill, while viewers at home get close-ups and a warm blanket. Many families keep it on while they cook, visit, or relax, though families spend the day in many different ways. The finale never changes: Santa Claus arrives on the last float, and his appearance signals that the holiday season has begun. Not bad for a parade that began with costumed store workers and animals on loan from the zoo, and now gets millions of people to start the holiday season together.