Science's Less Accurate Grandmother: Thanksgiving No-Ways with My Cousins

01 December 2017

Thanksgiving No-Ways with My Cousins

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Thanksgiving-- it is my favorite holiday. Significantly, this is because of how I celebrate it every year; the Mollmann family going up through my grandparents' generation always rents a large lodge or several cabins adjacent to a state park somewhere for Wednesday through Saturday or Sunday. These days, as my cousins marry off and reproduce, that's rather a lot of people.

Before we even got engaged, I told Hayley that we were always doing Thanksgiving with my family; that was my one nonnegotiable condition for marriage. Since when we were both at UConn we got a whole week off for Thanksgiving, we usually did something like the Saturday through Tuesday before Thanksgiving with her families in Cleveland, and then headed down to join mine for the actual day itself. Well, negotiation happened anyway, and back in 2014 we actually did Thanksgiving dinner with her families in Cleveland, booking it down to Hocking Hills Thanksgiving night to at least spend Friday through Sunday with my family.

photo by me

This year, circumstances created another compromise. Her little brother is a member of Ohio University's Marching 110, and this year they were invited to march in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Now the parade is not something I've ever particularly cared about, but getting to see my wife's brother in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity trumped even my nonnegotiables.

It was a hectic couple days. We flew in and out of Newark on a budget airline; Hayley's dad and family were staying in Brooklyn in the apartment of one of Hayley's cousins (out of town for Thanksgiving himself-- thanks Luis!). All in all, we left home at 5:30am and made it to the apartment at 2:30pm after driving an hour to Orlando, taking a parking shuttle, making the actual flight, riding the airport train, riding a New Jersey Transit train, and taking the subway. We were up early the next day, too: the parade itself starts at 9am, but you have to get to the parade route early to secure a good spot.

photo by Hayley

We awoke at 5am and got to the route around 6:30am, and the front row was already filled up along the entire route. We ended up settling in behind an older man and his adult daughter who had laid out some towels to claim a stretch of sidewalk for the rest of their family who were coming later. Our theory was that since they would be sitting on the towels, we would have a pretty good view of the parade over them.

It was a long and cold wait for the parade to start. It has been a long time since all I had to do was stand in one place and wait for something to happen. It was in the high thirties; coming straight to this from November in Florida was a particular shock. Hayley's other brother went and got me a coffee and her a hot chocolate mostly so he could go to the bathroom; I really needed that coffee but was terrified it would make me need to go to the bathroom. (Amazingly, I was fine.)

When the rest of the family in front of us finally turned up, it turned out they didn't need as much space as they had claimed, so they pulled up one of their towels and invited us into the vacated area. So getting there at 6:30am actually paid off!

photo by Hayley's older brother

I hadn't really known what to expect, since I've never paid the parade much attention, but basically it rotates between the big balloons (mostly, but not all, of licensed characters), elaborate floats with celebrities atop them (I didn't know very many of them, but I did know a few, including celebrity chef/Enterprise guest actress/Salman Rushdie's ex-wife Padma Lakshmi, and pop stars Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Holt), clowns dressed up (usually in a way that co-ordinates with a float), and a number of marching bands (mostly high school, actually, but in addition to OU, there was also Prairie View A&M, as well as the Air Force Marching Band).

It actually was really fun. The floats were impressive, though I don't get why they bring in a bunch of celebrities, mostly singers, who don't do any actual singing. The clowns were entertaining, and the balloons really are cool to see in person. The marching bands were all really good. There was a tremendous energy to the whole thing-- the clowns threw confetti!-- and I loved shouting and chanting at the floats and balloons. It was cold, but the skies were clear; you couldn't have asked for a nicer day, to be honest.

This was followed up later by a Thanksgiving dinner cruise for the Marching 110 and family, which was itself gorgeous:

photo by Hayley

Friday and Saturday morning we spent sightseeing; Friday with Hayley's family, and Saturday on our own after they left. The Grand Central Station Holiday Train Display was massively disappointing compared to the Union Terminal one in Cincinnati, but Central Park is always cool, and I particularly enjoyed seeing the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Cool plants, cool layout, and I enjoyed noting a few significant-to-me Brooklynites immortalized on the path of Brooklyn greats:

photos by me

So, in the end, I had an enjoyable trip, but I feel like I would never do it again. It's hard to imagine that this experience of it could be topped. And missing getting to spend time with the Mollmanns has been tougher and weirder than I imagined. But I am really happy I got to do it. Thanks to Hayley's dad and family for the opportunity, and for everything you provided during the trip!