Our Fantastic Friends-Giving Day Parade 

A Fun New Take on a Thanksgiving Tradition!

By Mia Siino & Claire Ramaley

November is all about being thankful and spending time with friends and family! This November, our Fantastic Friends celebrated one of our favorite holiday traditions- our very own “Friends-Giving Day” parade! 

We opened our session with a fun ice breaker asking everyone what their favorite Thanksgiving food was- lots of mashed potatoes and even lasagna! 

After that, we prepared for our parade by watching a video about the making of the Macy’s Day Parade balloons. It was so cool to see how they are made! 

Once we learned from the experts, it was time to create our own parade floats! First we made a sketch of our design and picked a theme for our float. Once we shared our designs, we started decorating! Volunteers had covered small boxes in craft paper so everyone had a blank slate to make their own creation. 

Participants had lots of different options to decorate their boxes from regular markers to feathers and gemstones. Everyone did a great job decorating their floats! 

We had lots of different themes for floats- flowers, friends, birthdays, music, and more! Once we were done decorating we hosted our very own parade! We played some festive parade music and paraded through the Playhouse- making sure to strike a pose on the stage! 

Once our parade floats were done, we did another parade staple- a dance performance! We danced to the Cupid Shuffle, Cha Cha Slide, and finally the Macarena. 

We finished out our night with one more fall art activity- drawing a fall-themed bird!

We had tons of fun hanging out and being with friends. We are so thankful for all of our Fantastic Friends and GiGi’s Playhouse Sacramento!