NEW YORK - One of the most highly anticipated elements of the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is the inflated balloons. This year, there will be 12 large character balloons, but with some modifications on how they are presented, all with safety in mind.

"This parade is something that everybody, every Thanksgiving across the country, they can rely on. They can depend on. They know that in the morning when they're making their Thanksgiving dinner, they can turn on the TV, they can see the balloons, they can see the floats and they'll be able to do all of that this year," said Susan Tercero, the Executive Director of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Since 1927, balloons have been a signature element in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Over the years, the inflatables have grown larger and flown higher, and as a result now require around 100 people working together in close quarters in order to pilot them, and that makes the prospect of flying them safely during this pandemic very challenging.

"I don't think that we can have this parade without some of these staples that everyone is going to be expecting on Thanksgiving morning. You're used to seeing floats and balloons. You're going to see all of that. And most of it will be live. So that's, what's really impactful about this parade, that it is live from 34th Street on Thanksgiving day," said Tercero.

"Instead of all of our handlers, we've actually paired it down in numbers by introducing a police system attached to vehicles. So the balloons, instead of having, you know, 50 to a hundred people walking with it are only going to have about 30 people on vehicles, driving the balloon down the route," said Matt Kapriellan, a parade studio manager at Macy’s.

"I think it's really important that people understand that we are pushing for this tradition so that when you wake up Thanksgiving morning, you know what to do. You can turn on, you can rely on us for a little bit of fun entertainment and some relief to what's been going on," Tercero concluded.