Many people remember watching holiday parades on TV on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Maybe they still do. Well, there’s a parade to end all parades that some people have not heard of before. It is streamed all over the world, and someone who sees it for the first time might wonder how they ever missed it.

Plymouth, Mass., is home to America’s Hometown Celebration. The parade takes place the weekend before Thanksgiving Day, because Olly DeMacedo and his team want everyone to be home with their families for Thanksgiving.

DeMacedo said he and his family emigrated from Cape Verde to America when he was just 7 years old. As is common with naturalized citizens, his patriotic feelings are off the charts.

“The real reason why I do this, and I am really passionate about it, is that I’m so grateful and I want to always tell the story about America.” He mentioned Neil Diamond’s song, “America,” and said he sympathizes with how very much so many people wanted to be here.

The parade began in 1996. “I, personally, have been doing it for about 23 years. I think it was in 2000 when I started. The parade used to be a little different, and what I did was make it more about American history.”

How exactly did he do that? DeMacedo explained.

“I’ve always wanted to tell the story of the nation, and our parade is the only one anywhere that is chronologically correct. Our first float is American Indians, followed by the next one, which is the Mayflower, and we go from there.”

The parade always has a theme, but DeMacedo said that every year there is also a theme within a theme. Last year’s was “The Price of Freedom.” This year is “We Are the World.”

“I wanted to do something that was uplifting, and you know, the song says, ‘we are the children, we are the future.’ So, we have all kinds of children in all kinds of different attire from around the world. We’ll put in other things that have to do with children and the future.”

DeMacedo said he thinks that ingenuity is part of what makes the U.S. a great country. “So, I think we’ll never ever stop working in historical aspects of America when we plan our parades. Obviously, we have a lot of drum and bugle corps: It makes you proud just to hear them, you feel that emotion. We’ll always have that. We’ll always tell the stories. This year we might do something with Plymouth Rock. Not everyone knows that it came apart.”

Plymouth Rock has split and been moved multiple times, resulting in the loss of some of the original rock. When local citizens tried to move it to the town square in 1774, it split in half horizontally. The top half was moved as planned, and the bottom half remained at the wharf. In 1834, the top half was moved to the front of the Pilgrim Hall Museum, and a few years later a canopy was built to protect the bottom half from further damage. In 1880, the two halves were reunited under that canopy, and “1620” was carved into the rock. Only about one-third of the original rock remains.

DeMacedo is proud of what parade organizers have been able to accomplish without a lot of resources.

Many historical anniversaries are incorporated into the parade, including the anniversary of the opening of The Pilgrim Hall Museum – the oldest public museum in the United States in continuous operation. It opened in 1824.

“The backdrop is that we are a little town,” DeMacedo said, “and we can still compete with big programs. There is nothing like being here firsthand and present day.”

As might be expected, a tremendous amount of coordination and work goes into a parade of this magnitude.

DeMacedo noted that the operators are almost 100% volunteer. Some stay for just one season, others stay forever. They come from everywhere.

“It’s important for us to keep the base together. There is just a core of 15-20 workers, 10 of which are consistently here, but we have a couple hundred volunteers. We’ve been incredibly fortunate with all the help that we get here.”

We’re all in this thing together to really promote the principles and fundamental truths.”

That the purpose of the parade is to promote the country’s founding principles and truths is beautifully spoken in their mission statement.

“Our mission is to educate the public while preserving our country’s important history, starting with the pilgrim legacy and Thanksgiving story while recognizing all those who have fought to protect the American way of life. We will accomplish this goal by producing a Thanksgiving celebration of excellence in Plymouth, America’s Hometown, where Thanksgiving began. Through concerts honoring military sacrifice and a parade chronicling the Pilgrim legacy, spectators will leave with a sense of history and pride.”

DeMacedo said that planning for the annual event goes on almost all yearlong.

“We take the end of November and also December off, of course. We all need to enjoy family time through the holidays. We start up again in January. I design all the floats and build most of them myself. I might get up at 3 a.m. sometimes with an idea that’s percolating in my mind. We start putting things together then. June and July, we start building floats, and then in August we meet with ABC to coordinate with them for television coverage. That work, that kind of detail, goes all the way through to the day of the event.”

The town turns the parade into a weekend of celebration. “There’s a concert on Friday night, lots of activity tents, a beer and wine garden and a children’s pavilion, the historic village, a farmer’s market, and a food truck alley. It’s not ‘just’ a parade. It’s a whole production.”

Crowd control for the parade requires careful management.

“We have a very large logistic team. There is parking offsite: We bus individuals into the city and then bus then back out after the event is over. It’s a big challenge, but we’re able to do it on an annual basis and it works well.”

This year, the parade will mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day. In the past there have been celebrations for the cultivated cranberry, the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, honors for the fishing and lobster trade, and in 2016, one for the 25th anniversary of Desert Storm. There have been celebrations to mark Massachusetts statehood and floats to honor Amelia Earhart as the first woman to fly across the country. There was also one to honor the Wright Brothers, who epitomized the ingenuity that DeMacedo reveres.

He proudly shared his dedication to honoring veterans as well.

“We have a huge, huge collection of veterans. Last year we featured ‘The Price of Freedom.’ We included the Gold Star Mothers, our veterans, and we had a huge eagle overheard with wings that moved. We celebrated the anniversary of ‘Taps,’ with bagpipers playing it.”

Another special feature in the parade is the “America’s Hometown Express,” a big train that DeMacedo built after cutting the roof off an old school bus.

“The train is for us to collect food all along the route, so it can be given to food banks and shelters. It’s promoted ahead, so viewers know to bring non-perishable items,” DeMacedo explained.

Debra Gallo, parade media specialist, makes sure all the promotion that can be done is indeed done each year.

“My goal is to get the parade on TV second behind Macy’s,” she said. She noted that one year the Indian float had all the real Indian chiefs from across the nation. “It caused a bit of an uproar, but we wanted to tell the whole history.”

They know it’s important not to be political with the parade, not to take sides, but simply to share and honor the many aspects of American history. In just two years, the nation will be 250 years old; the prospect of such a celebration has DeMacedo plotting and planning already.

The crowd numbers more than 100,000 along the parade route. And just like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, the final float of Plymouth’s parade is Santa Claus.

Streaming and on-demand access is available through the VeryLocal app on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Android TV. It can also be enjoyed on the website https://usathanksgiving.com/.

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