When: Thursday 26 November 2009, 8 – 11 am CST

Where: Starts at the intersection of State St. and Congress Ave. and travels north to Randolph St. ACCESS THE GOOGLE MAP, here!

Watch it on TV: Tune into WGN 9 Chicago or WGN America for the live broadcast.

If you think that watching the Macy’s Day Parade (held in NYC) on television is the only way to get your Thanksgiving fill of floats, balloons and performances…think again! Let’s be honest, you are sick and tired of seeing all of those high school bands and you would rather keep it local.

To get the inside scoop on the parade and its vibrant history, I interviewed Phil Purevich, executive director of the Chicago Festival Association.

MCH: What makes Chicago’s McDonald’s Thanksgiving Day Parade different from the one put on by Macy’s in New York?

PP:  There is a lot of cultural diversity in our performers and we really focus on that. Chicago is a diverse city and we try to represent that in the parade. I’m not saying Macy’s isn’t diverse, I’m just saying that that’s what we focus on.

MCH: What’s the oldest and newest things at the parade?

PP: The oldest unit is the Barefoot Hawaiian Dancers who have been around for ten years. I don’t know what the newest is, but I do know the biggest balloon. It’s Bullwinkle [J. Moose].

No matter what the weather, the Barefoot Hawaiian Dancers have been in attendance for 10 years!

MCH: How is the parade in the street different from the one that airs on television?

PP: This year we have several staged performances for TV only, including a performance from the shows Million Dollar Quartet and Cirque du Soleil’s Banana Shpeel. So it’s almost like there are two parades, but you cannot beat actually being at the parade. My favorite part are the balloons.  They are just larger-than-life. You can hear the oohs and the ahhs as the balloons go by from the adults, teenagers and children.

One of my childhood favourites, Paddington the Bear!

MCH: Tell me more about the diversity of the parade. What’s an interesting, diverse unit that people should know about.

PP: The Jesse White Tumblers. They are a gymnastics/acrobatics team started by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White back in 1959. It takes at-risk kids and uses gymnastics to keep them away from drugs, alcohol and crime. It’s helped 1,000s of kids. (EDITORS NOTE: It’s helped 8,500 young women and men to date…learn more at The Jesse White Tumbling Team).

MCH: Originally the parade was started in the 1930s to help stimulate the economy through shopping. Will anything even be open on Thanksgiving day?

PP: The Old Navy on State Street is opening on Thanksgiving. Also most restaurants and coffee shops, and several restaurants will be providing sidewalk service.

Before this interview, Purevich was able to give me a run-down of the history of the parade. I bulleted his main points and have highlighted below some of the more interesting ones! (Note: After much research and chatting with Purevich, please note that this is the official timeline. Many other sites have wrong information!).

  • The Parade was created in 1934 shortly after the Great Depression, when Chicago’s  State Street Council (a business association) decided they wanted to throw a parade to stimulate the economy and lift peoples’ spirits. Through 1967 it was  held on the first weekend of December  was a straight Christmas parade.

  • 1967: the City of Chicago took over and continued the tradition of  the Christmas parade. By 1983 the City of Chicago was in financial turmoil and cut funding for many city parades and events – the Christmas parade was one of them. That year a private organization picked up the parade.

  • 1984: McDonalds sponsored the parade and called it Ronald McDonald’s Childrens Charity Parade. Because of a depressed economy, many businesses started to abandon State Street, so the parade moved to Michigan Avenue. The date of the parade moved to the Saturday after Thanksgiving  and was branded as a generic holiday parade.

  • In 1990 Brach’s Confections picked up the parade and called it the Brach’s Kid Holiday Parade.

  • 1998: Marshall Field’s took over and renamed the parade, Field’s Jingle Elf Parade. MF’s used it to advertise for their Jingle Elves initiative, in which they would send people dressed like elves into the city to perform random acts of kindness (putting money into parking meters, paying for L rides, etc.).

  • 1999: Rennovation of State Street completed in the and the parade returned to its original spot! The parade also started being produced on the morning of Thanksgiving. It beat Macy’s parade out of the box and had a GREAT turnout.

  • 2000: Target took over as the main sponsor and in 2003 it was just called the State Street Thanksgiving Parade
  • 2006: McDonald’s took back the parade!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Dev xx