The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a long held holiday tradition, started on the streets of New York and now broadcasted all over news stations such as NBC and CBS. Images of the huge balloons are the first images that come to mind when people think about the parade, but there are many performers that are featured in the parade as well, such as Lucy Hale, KISS, Nick Jonas, high school marching bands, dancers and cheerleaders. I was a part of the Varsity Spirit cheerleading squad for the parade this Thanksgiving.

The Varsity Spirit cheerleading squad is made up of senior cheerleading captains from all over the country. At the end of summer, those who wanted to participate had to apply to Spirit of America Productions and spots filled quickly. Varsity Spirit ended up taking 780 of America’s strongest cheerleaders.

The cheerleaders chosen to participate with Varsity Spirit were provided with six days of practice and sightseeing all over New York City. Nearly every day, we had 3-4.5 hour practices in the hotel’s ballroom, and during our downtime we went to see Aladdin on Broadway, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring the Rockettes, Ellis Island harbor cruise and went shopping around Times Square with the entire group. Trying to get nearly 800 girls on subways for these events was a rather interesting ordeal. I feel bad for all the native New Yorkers who were riding the subways that week. We were also given two free days where we could go out to see places such as the 9/11 Memorial, Natural History Museum, and Central Park with our parents.

This year’s routine was based off of KISS and looking like the band’s “groupies”; our routine was choreographed to their popular song “Rock and Roll All Nite,” we were given black poms, and the parents and siblings were given KISS masks to wear during the parade.

The day of the parade, everyone had to meet in the ballroom at 5:00 a.m. to rehearse before we went to lineup for the parade. After we had rehearsed, we all filed onto the subway and were brought down to the start of the parade by 6:00 a.m. Once we got off the subway, it was freezing outside, and we were not allowed to wear anything besides our uniform and tights, no gloves, no ear warmers, nothing. Thankfully, we were provided silver emergency blankets while we waited for the parade to start. We looked like 800 Chipotle burritos. After sitting out in the cold for nearly four hours, we finally got to start walking down the parade route.

It was an unforgettable experience. We were right in front of KISS and also got to meet the Harlem Globetrotters. Even though I was frozen by the end, I would have done it all over again. Being able to participate in such a big production and meeting so many new people was spectacular.