The Mayfield family are a dedicated group. They’d already made the 900-mile journey from Tennessee to be at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, stayed over in New York for four nights, before getting up at 5am on a bitterly cold morning to secure a spot at the front of the crowds.
Stood by the railings on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 39th Street as snow fell on the parade, mother Rebecca still had a smile on her face.
“It was worth it,” she said, revealing they’d come all the way to watch her brother-in-law perform with the Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps, who marched just ahead of Santa Claus. “They were definitely the best thing.”
Ten-year-old Colby Mayfield nodded in agreement. He didn’t get a wave from Santa, but that didn’t seem to matter.
Organisers estimated 3.5 million people were due to attend the parade in midtown Manhattan, which combined the magnificent, the surreal and the absurd.
Celebrities often whizzed by on floats before attendees could pick out who they were looking at. “Who are those guys?” shouted one onlooker as the Madden Brothers of noughties-era Good Charlotte fame waved to the crowds and clutched their guitars. “I think that was a Jonas Brother,” said another. It was. Nick. He stood at the front of a ship-shaped float blankly waving into the distance.
Seven-year-old Kayley Ging from New Jersey was attending her third parade. She came with hope to see Hello Kitty who eventually appeared midway through the parade.
The sheer size of the inflatables was a sight in itself. A giant Paddington Bear, a Spiderman held to the ground by dozens of marchers, a Thomas the Tank Engine that nearly crashed into a scaffold protruding from the road, and an iceskating Ronald McDonald whose clenched fist and vacant glare was genuinely haunting.
Seven people were reported to have been arrested as a small protest against police impunity and the shooting of Michael Brown broke out towards the end of the parade.
Just two days previously, the streets of New York were brought to a halt by protestors following a grand jury decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson for the shooting of the unarmed teenager.
The NYPD band marched to the tune of When the Saints, which drew ire from some observers on social media.
By far the waviest of all the marchers was Santa himself, who sat at the back of the parade atop a sledge two stories high. His hands never stopped moving and his grin seemed plastered to his face, probably a consequence of wearing the thickest coat of all the marchers, many of whom were drenched by the end of the parade.
And as soon as Santa passed, the railings were lifted and the crowds dispersed. A giant mother Goose ended the day at the corner of Broadway Avenue and 39th Street, nestled behind a van before its impending deflation.
