Ahhhhhhh….now it’s tis the season. I was so happy to see that Christmas trees didn’t take over Thanksgiving. So when they showed up bright and early Friday morning it felt just right.

I spent the afternoon in Soho dodging my way through all the crowds. It was CRAZY!! Before I headed home I was so close to Broome Street Bar I just had to partake. Poor me.

I’m off to sunny Arizona very early Sunday morning! First time back in six months!

You gotta love that people will find all kinds of locations to catch a glimpse of the parade!
I’ll share a few that I captured this morning:

In a tree:

On a fire escape in their jammies :

On their balconies:

Out their windows and on top of their roofs:

And this little fashionista didn’t have a good vantage point, but was just so precious! OK, I’m done with Thanksgiving now.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Just how lucky can a girl get. I just came in from spending the last several hours out and about enjoying various vantage points of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade! I have so many black and blue marks from pinching myself all morning long. I’ve been watching this parade since I was a little girl (we know how long ago that was!) and for three hours I was smack in the middle of chaos and loving every minute of it! It’s a cloudy, but nice day with temperatures in the 50′s. Just perfect!

Now I’m sitting here in the comfort of the den watching it on TV, viewing what I saw several hours ago since the parade started just a few blocks away here in the Upper West Side. Since they changed the route this year it’s taking a while to get to Macy’s Department store.

I’ll just share a few of my favorite photos!
First, Spiderman in Columbus Circle:

Along with the Energizer Bunny from last night’s viewing:

Here comes Kermit!

…and Mickey Mouse!

And of course the day wouldn’t be complete without Santa passing by at the end of my street!

The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was in 1924 and animals were borrowed from the Central Park Zoo to give it a little flair. After the first couple of parades, when it became apparent that the animals weren’t as kid-friendly as Macy’s might have liked, they asked a theatrical designer to come up with some animal-shaped balloons. Felix the Cat, one of the first, was made at the Goodyear Tire company in Ohio in 1927. For a few years the balloons were released after the parade and anyone who found one was entitled to a reward at Macy’s. But this was stopped in 1933 after a couple of mishaps with the balloons. By 1934, Walt Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse and Pluto joined the parade. During WWII, the rubber balloons were donated to the war effort and the parade didn’t resume until 1947. It then began to develop as we know it today: floats, celebrities, bigger and better balloons, and national TV coverage.

So to prepare for the big day, imagine my surprise when I learned that the balloons are inflated just a few blocks from the Gotham Den! I headed out and immediately was in a sea of strollers. (Oh, I guess this is all about kids and not necessarily all about ME.) Slowly I made my way towards the American Museum of Natural History. And I mean very slowly. Two full city blocks showcase these huge characters that are slowly blown up and brought to life. Nets and sandbags are used to keep the balloons from escaping during the night. So here are a few photos to give you an idea of their size. And these were the smaller ones!

And of course we have the Energizer Bunny:

And towards the end of my evening…an encounter with Mayor Bloomberg:

Headed out to Virginia on a misty Saturday morning and was able to capture a shot of the grand opening of the new Apple store in my hood! Can’t wait to visit when I return next week. Only two short blocks from the Gotham Den!