Good morning and welcome the Kid News where we're celebrating the extended

Thanksgiving holiday. I'm Tori. So before you sit down for food, family, and

football, we thought we'd share some fun facts and a little history about this special time of year.

First, just about everybody's favorite tradition, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

It happens every year in New York City,

but did you know it actually started as a Christmas parade?

It was 1924, and Macy's organized floats, bands, and Zoo animals to march from 124th Street,

down to 34th, where Santa would be waiting

to unveil the store's Christmas windows.

Three years later, the Christmas Parade was renamed the Thanksgiving Parade.

The first balloons debuted with the parade's new name in 1927 and have been part of it ever since.

Giant dinosaurs, Felix the cat, Mickey Mouse, and Snoopy all eventually joined in.

One tradition that didn't continue, letting the balloons float away

so that anyone who caught one would win a Macy's gift certificate.

The weather this time of year can be frightful in New York, and that's played havoc with the balloons and even the parade

goers. In 1957 a wet day got wetter for people near a pop-eye balloon. The

character's hat filled with water and drenched parade watchers. The same thing happened in

1962 with a Donald Duck hat and Superman once lost his balloon arm to tree branches.

But the worst was probably 1997, a blustery day in the Big Apple.

During that parade winds reach more than 40 miles per hour and some of the balloons

spun out of control. Some of the other interesting tidbits about today,

baby turkeys are known as Pultz.

...