Marching to the Beat of...

Marching to the Beat of…

By Drew Bankston

As many of you know I have a family. I care for my family by working. I wish that the way I earned all of my money was through book sales, but that’s not happening right now, so instead, I work for Macy’s.  I’m actually glad that I do because an amazing opportunity has presented itself to me and I want to share that with all of you.

A few weeks ago, Macy’s held auditions and I entered. It was pretty fun entering. The audition was for a singing part in the famed Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Here’s what they are doing.

Macy’s was looking for 150 employees from around the country to participate in a first. They are creating a singing Christmas Tree in the parade. 50 employees are coming from New York and the other 100 are to be employees from outside of New York. So they held singing auditions. If you wanted a shot at it you had to upload a video of yourself, singing one verse of a song from a list that they provided, answer a couple of questions on camera, and wait.

So I thought, “What the heck,” and I did. Much to my amazement and surprise, I was one of two people chosen to go! What a fun surprise that was. First of all, I’ve never really been to New York. Well, I drove through it once, hauling horses from Virginia to Vermont. Didn’t get to see anything except a lot of traffic. Now, however, I get to go to New York and Macy’s is paying my way.

As a child, I watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade every Thanksgiving morning. Even as an adult I’ve made it a tradition to watch the parade every Thanksgiving morning. Miracle on 34^th Street was one of my favorite Christmas movies. Macy’s and the Thanksgiving Day parade was an amazing, wonder-filled event.

To me, this is an incredible opportunity and I’m very grateful that this is in the works. What fun it will be!

I leave the Monday morning before Thanksgiving and arrive in New York around 12:30PM. Over the next few days, I’ll be involved with rehearsals and social events. I’m so excited to be living this childhood dream of being a part of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and plan on blogging more about it each week as I find out more details.

I hope that you all will join me on this magical adventure and be sure to watch the parade Thanksgiving morning. You might see me there singing away!