NEW YORK, Nov. 27 -- Americans on Thursday celebrated a Thanksgiving Day transformed by the coronavirus pandemic, with the traditional Macy's parade limited to a television-only event and many families resigned to meeting on video for turkey dinner.

Thanksgiving, normally a day for family and friends to gather in big numbers to feast on turkey and pumpkin pie and remember life's blessings, has been upended by the pandemic, with cases and deaths surging in recent weeks as cooler weather pushes people indoors where the virus spreads more easily.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, a spectacle of giant character balloons that has delighted children for nearly a century, was scaled back significantly. The route was reduced to on...