Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This drawing is from the “official inflation” of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons that happens every year on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Now that’s a kind of inflation I can get behind! It’s really nice, everyone comes out to see it and just walk around celebrating the holiday. It happens on the square block around the Museum of Natural History, starting in the afternoon. It used to be a small neighborhood kind of thing, with people popping their heads out of their apartment windows and kids selling hot chocolate for 50 cents from card tables set up on the street corners. Now it has become touristy and large, including television cameras and police barricades, but it’s still fun to do. Not to mention the parade itself —  — the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has been a part of my holiday for as long as I have memories. My earliest memories are of watching the parade on WPIX and eating my Mom’s famous pfferneuse cookies. (Being from the Bronx, we pronounced it “puffer-noose”, butchering the German in the process.) Man, those cookies, a glass of apple cider, and watching a giant Snoopy coming down Broadway – it doesn’t get any better than that! One year, 1971 or 2 I guess, we all trekked down to Manhattan to see the parade in person. It was COLD – I think it snowed? And I remember standing on a mailbox leaning on an icy pole to get a better view of the goings on. Then we ran back up to the BX for Papa’s Thanksgiving dinner and a warm apartment! What a memory…Happy Thanksgiving to all!!