No Miracles on 34th Street
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade | Photo by Jon Harder on Wikimedia Commons
The opinions reflected in this OpEd are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of staff, faculty and students of The King's College.
On Nov. 24, the air will be thick with the scent of cranberries and spices. I will hear gravy bubbling on the stove as I watch Al Roker announce some singer singing some misaligned song on some misaligned float.
But as I go through that morning, peeling potatoes and sneaking cheese from the compounding charcuterie board, I will happily watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade light up my TV screen with balloons and floats and GEICO advertisements. When the Rockettes come on, I will gather all my cousins and we’ll do what we do every year: try to kick as high and synchronized as they do. Eventually, I will turn off the TV, feeling a rush of nostalgia before I settle in for a lovely meal while my family thanks God for His blessings to us.
This will happen because this is what happens every year, but I’m not sure that it should.
It seems that I, like many other Americans, view the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade as just another sweet Thanksgiving tradition. It’s a family-friendly music-fest of color and sound, but the celebrities and the little songs and the warmth are all perfectly manufactured and poised to sell products and make money.
It is estimated that the spectacle costs $10-12 million, and generates “$24.1 million in economic activity,” according to nyc.gov. Many corporate giants such as Netflix, Wonder, Nickelodeon, Peacock and others invest anywhere from $810,000-2.7 million on floats for the famed drive down 34th Street.
As fun and whimsical as these floats may be, they are, essentially, just one big commercial. And in addition to the float investors, there are a plethora of companies who pay for balloons and many more who pay to fill the actual commercial break for the giant commercial. As an innocent “Stuart the Minion” balloon floats across the screens of the U.S., he carries on his back quite a bit of promotional baggage.
Dispersed economic stimulation does have significant benefits. The parade enables plenty of jobs and almost definitely contributes to the market of tourism which supports nearly 400,000 New Yorkers. However, starting off a day supposedly dedicated to gratitude with a three hour video telling us to accumulate more objects and experiences seems disturbingly incongruent.
But there is, perhaps, a greater reason than ideals to question the positivity of the parade. There are also environmental concerns to be had. Chief among these is the excessive use of helium.
The parade uses roughly 400,000 cubic feet each year to float those balloons. Helium, unlike nearly all other elements, is non-renewable, meaning the earth will eventually run out of it. The estimates are highly varied on how much helium is left in the world, and how much time humans have until it runs out, but 400,000 cubic feet is a significant amount of mass to be using for an element that some sources refer to as “endangered.”
And, running out of helium would not be a small issue. Helium is highly utilized by many industries. The gas is used in MRI’s, NASA operations, cryogenics, nuclear power protocol and even refrigerators. In addition to this expending of resources, the 2019 parade generated 21 tons of debris. The happy, smiling people certainly generate a large amount of waste.
Thanksgiving has highly disturbing origins. A war between Native Americans and colonists and the fact that Europeans brought over illnesses that killed 90% of Indigenous people are not occurrences worth celebrating. But letting a day of thankfulness fall prey to consumerism is also disturbing. Instead, Thanksgiving can actually live up to its namesake. We as a nation have the opportunity to uniquely praise God for his individual blessings to us.
My family always watches the Thanksgiving Day Parade, yes, but it has never been the point of the day.
The point of the day is running out barefoot on the cold Ohio concrete to help my grandfather carry in the green beans. The point of the day is playing board games in the kitchen and playing music in the office. The point of Thanksgiving is always an intentional time of togetherness.
But I can’t help feeling that in those later hours of the evening when the mashed potatoes are being reheated in the microwave and the turkey is being eaten on sandwich bread instead of with fork and knife, my mind will wander to the endless array of what is not had. I’m worried that even after a day of thankfulness and joy I’ll be left wanting more. And I can’t help feeling that the Macy’s Parade and, by implication, Black Friday, will contribute to that.
I love the parade — it's a holiday tradition — but I do not think it is helpful. This year instead of letting advertisements lazily enter my brain creating insecurities and dissatisfaction, I want to take every thought captive, spend time with my family, and drink an absurd amount of cranberry soda.
Matthew Peterson is the Podcast Editor for the Empire State Tribune. He is a freshman at The King's College studying Journalism, Culture and Society.