Philadelphia hosts the annual Mummers Parade on New Year's Day, following New Year's Eve celebrations.
The Mummers Parade is a Philadelphia tradition in which clubs, organized into divisions including Comics, Wench Brigades, Fancies, and String Bands, perform along Broad Street. Participants wear elaborate costumes, build detailed displays, and present music or comic performances before large crowds.
The parade's roots reach back to Philadelphia's nineteenth-century New Year's Day celebrations and older European mumming traditions. The modern parade developed during the 1800s, when city officials helped organize and regulate competing neighborhood festivities.
Although it takes place on January 1 rather than on New Year's Eve itself, it is closely connected with the city's holiday celebrations. The event is often described as the oldest folk parade in the United States, but that wording concerns its long-running organized tradition and should not be confused with claiming that every related custom began in one exact year.