This year's celebration of the Thanksgiving Day estimated 3.5 millions of people lined along Sixth Avenue despite of the heavy security; floats and marching bands made their way to Manhattan for the parade, especially for 90th Macy's Thanksgiving Day.
Attendees wore layers to keep warm in the 40-degree cold, but there was no rain, as had been forecasted on the said celebration and many were thankful about it.
Neither ISIS nor the threat of bad weather could rain on the nation's biggest parade on Thursday.
But all the fun was set against a backdrop of a ramped-up law-enforcement presence with thousands of officers on or near the route that started at Central Park West and 77th Street and ended in Herald Square.
There were tight security that has been spread out with Bomb-sniffing dogs, riot police and officers with assault rifles and portable radiation detectors walked among revelers.
Spectators, standing 10 deep at points, held signs and balloons Santa and his reindeer, Ronald McDonald and SpongeBob Square Pants passed by.
Charlie Brown led the parade's signature balloons that included Pikachu, the Pillsbury Doughboy, Hello Kitty and the new DreamWorks' Trolls.
There were no notable arrests, police said Thursday night. The police presence did dampen some revelers' spirits.
Though there are armored cops with giant guns on every corner but they're smiling at the kids and taking pictures reminding that things right now are not okay.
Remember that the event was targeted for lone-wolf terrorist after an English-language magazine published by ISIS.
More than 80 sanitation trucks filled with sand were parked at intersections to block and unwanted vehicles.
It was a sign that NYPD brass had taken a lesson from the Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, on July 14 - when a radical plowed a rented truck into revelers, killing 86 people.
Still, Thursday's Thanksgiving Day parade seemed to go off without any obvious problems, with Santa bringing up the rear as usual.
Thanksgiving Day traditionally kicks off the 'holiday season' in the United States. This happens every fourth Thursday in November.
The day was set in stone by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 and approved by Congress in 1941. FDR changed it from Abraham Lincoln's designation as the last Thursday in November because there are sometimes five Thursdays on the said month.
This is a warm-up for the Yuletide season for the Britons while Americans think of it as just as important as Christmas.
In fact, more people in the US celebrate Thanksgiving than they do Christmas. Thanksgiving Day is a secular holiday in a country that officially separates church and state so this probably makes sense.
