Macy’s Parade Is Back This Thanksgiving, but Kids Are Sidelined

The tradition has been largely restored, but children under 12 years old will not be allowed in the parade — only as spectators.

As the coronavirus surged in New York City last year, the typical fanfare of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was downsized: The route shrank to one block, the number of participants was cut by several thousand people and the public was told to stay home.

It could hardly be called a parade at all. There wasn’t so much a procession as a series of struts down the runway for the television cameras. The broadcast was filmed over three days and edited to give the impression of a seamless three-hour program.

This year, with the city reporting that more than 80 percent of adults are fully vaccinated, the parade is expected to return with all its helium-filled pomp and corporate-branded holiday cheer — with an asterisk: children under 12 will not be allowed to participate in the parade itself. They will, however, be allowed as spectators along the two-and-a-half-mile parade route, as well as at the ceremonial inflation of the balloons on Wednesday afternoon around the American Museum of Natural History.