The show must go on, and so too, parades. On Thanksgiving Day, New York City maintained its near-century tradition of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade though it was a bit different due to COVID-19. The 94th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade has continued traditionally since 1924 and was only canceled three times — due to World War II. COVID-19 was not enough to stop the parade though many other traditional parades and celebrations were scrapped in 2020.

There were still celebrities and live performances (albeit, not as many as in previous years), and large balloons were secured to vehicles rather than being operated by humans who would potentially be exposed to the virus and there were noticeably fewer people who watched the parade live. Verizon brought the parade that included pretaped celebrity appearances to the masses and it is available to watch online and on-demand via Verizon’s YouTube page.

NBC kept with its tradition and aired the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on their network from 9 a.m. until noon. Mario Lopez hosted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade from his home in Los Angeles. NBC’s Ross Matthews was the on-the-scene correspondent who brought his humor and wit to the program. It rained and the participants wore face masks but the show went on and many were delighted that the holiday event wasn’t canceled.

You may watch the entire Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in the video player below.

Macy’s Executive Producer for Branded Entertainment Susan Tercero spoke about the upcoming parade and the changes that would take place due to COVID-19. She stated the following.

The plan is good. It’s not exactly what we wanted it to be, but I imagine everyone has a story like that in 2020. It was in the best interest of everybody to reduce our footprint.

Do you watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade every year? Did you watch it on NBC on Thanksgiving Day? Are you going to watch it on demand?

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Charisse Van Horn is a freelance writer from Tampa Bay. She enjoys writing about celebrities, entertainment, and fashion. Any reproduction of this article outside of Celebrity Insider will be met with legal action by the writer.