New York ? Parents hoisted little ones atop their shoulders so they could see over the huge crowds and bigger children scrambled up lamp posts to watch “Super Grover” and Barney float past in the annual Thanksgiving parade.

“It’s jam-packed out here,” said Simeon Brown, 41, who brought his four children and four nephews up from Charleston, S.C., to watch the extravaganza.

Under a clear sky and enjoying temperatures in the mid-50s, hundreds of thousands of people packed Broadway, standing 20 deep in areas. Many were so far back they could only see the giant balloons floating overhead.

Rain dampened Thanksgiving festivities in some other areas.

James Britton kept a tight grip on a steaming mug of cappuccino as drizzle dampened the Woodward Avenue parade route in Detroit, and temperatures sat in the 40s.

“It’s a necessity,” Britton, 21, said of the cappuccino. “If it had been a little colder, I might have stayed home.”

Detroit’s damp chill didn’t deter competitors in the Turkey Trot, a road race that preceded the parade. Matt Engelbrecht, 17, ran clad only in shorts and green-and-white body paint, the colors of his Lake Orion High School.

“If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it,” Engelbrecht said.

Army cooks and volunteers prepared and served 5,000 meals at Fort Carson, outside Colorado Springs, Colo. Thirty-two soldiers based at Fort Carson have been killed in Iraq.

The Little Bill balloon floats down Broadway in Times Square, during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York. Hundreds of thousands of people packed Broadway on Thursday, standing 20 deep in areas.

“It is a task to cook 225 turkeys,” said Chief Warrant Officer Alberto Sanchez, who oversees food operations at the post. “But at a time when our soldiers are deployed in Iraq, it’s great to be able to provide a service to the soldiers here without families and to the community.”

Another huge feast was set out for members of the 3rd Infantry Division and their families and retired veterans at Hunter Army Airfield at Savannah, Ga.

“It was really nice to see them do something like that for us,” said Spc. Joshua Cline, of Boring, Ore., who returned from Iraq in July. “I’m thankful that I didn’t lose anybody in my unit.”

Thanksgiving dinner also was a fitting observation of the holiday elsewhere.

At San Francisco’s Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, 1,200 volunteers served 6,000 meals, starting with breakfast at 7 a.m.

“I almost was in shock today to see the number of people that are in their late years coming in, but it’s very moving,” said the Rev. Cecil Williams, whose church began serving the meals 28 years ago.

A band provided dance music for some of the more than 3,000 people at the annual Thanksgiving dinner put on by the Beerman Foundation in Dayton, Ohio.

“It is a dinner for the homeless, needy and the lonely, so that no one has to spend the holiday alone,” spokeswoman Kathryn Panstingel said.