At Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, 16 giant balloons flew, despite 26 mph winds along the route. Stormy weather earlier in the week threatened to ground the characters for the first time since 1971. Handlers held the balloons, including Snoopy and Buzz Lightyear, fairly close to the ground in tree-lined areas.
The leash was shorter in Philadelphia. At the 6ABC Dunkin Donuts Thanksgiving Parade, winds gusting to 28 mph limited the use of parade balloons to the Eakins Oval near the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The biggest stars weren't always puffed up. In Detroit, the parade grand marshal was Jim Leyland, the former Tigers baseball manager. He told WDIV-TV he "certainly would have liked" a World Series parade last seen in 1984, but he retired after the team lost the American League championship to the Boston Red Sox.
Weather behaved for 43 million Americans that travel group AAA projected to travel during the holiday weekend.
Heavy rain and wind had blown across the Southwest early in the week and up the East Coast on Tuesday and Wednesday, snarling traffic and delaying flights. But Thursday dawned clear and cold, with temperatures in the 20s and 30s in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, and 40s and 50s in the Southeast, that were 10 to 20 degrees below normal, according to the National Weather Service.
President Obama and his family dined on turkey, honey-baked ham, cornbread stuffing, oyster stuffing, macaroni and cheese, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green-bean casserole and rolls. The family had a choice of pies for dessert, including huckleberry, pecan, chocolate cream, sweet potato, peach, apple, pumpkin, banana cream and coconut cream, according to the White House press pool report.
U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan received a traditional Thanksgiving ! Day meal, with mac and cheese, as well, at the U.S.-led coalition base in Kabul. President Obama called 10 service members from each branch of the military to thank them for their service and to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving, stated the press pool report.
U.S. soldiers pray before eating a Thanksgiving meal at a dining hall at the U.S.-led coalition base in Kabul, Afghanistan on Nov. 22, 2012.(Photo: Musadeq Sadeq, AP)
Many retailers champing at the bit for impatient shoppers decided against waiting for "Black Friday" and opened Thursday expecting tens of millions of customers. Kmart opened at 6 a.m., while Walmart and Best Buy waited until 6 p.m. and were followed by Macy's Target, Kohl's, JC Penney and Seats at 8 a.m.
Contributing: The Associated Press.
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