The Mummers Parade is an American event held each New Year's Day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is thought to be the oldest folk festival in the United States.

Local clubs (usually called "New Years Associations") compete in one of four categories (comics, fancies, string bands and fancy brigades). They prepare elaborate costumes and moveable scenery, which take months to complete. This is done in clubhouses – many of which are located on or near 2nd Street (called "Two Street" by some local residents) in the Pennsport neighborhood of the city's South Philadelphia section – which also serve as social gathering places for members.

The parade is televised on WPHL-TV; after a national campaign to get the parade nationally televised, an edited two-hour broadcast of the parade was picked up by WGN America and WGN-TV; the broadcast debuted January 3, 2009.

The parade traces back to mid-17th-century roots, blending elements from Swedish, Finnish, Irish, English, German and other European heritages, as well as African heritage. The parade is related to the Mummers Play tradition from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Revivals of this tradition are still celebrated annually in South Gloucestershire, England on Boxing Day and in parts of Ireland on St. Stephen's Day and also in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador around Christmas.

A Polish American (Polish: Amerykanin polskiego pochodzenia), is a citizen of the United States of Polish descent. There are an estimated 10 million Polish Americans, representing about 3.2% of the population of the United States. No distinction is made in the American census between ethnically Polish Americans and descendants of non-ethnic Poles, such as Jews or Ukrainians, who were born in the territory of Poland and considered themselves Polish nationals. Therefore, some say, of the 10 million Polish Americans, only a certain portion are of Polish ethnic descent. On the other hand, many ethnic Poles when entering the US from 1795–1917, when Poland did not exist, did not identify themselves as ethnic Poles and instead identified themselves as either German, Austrian or Russian (this pertained to the nations occupying Poland from 1795–1917). Therefore, the actual amount of Americans of at least partial Polish ancestry, could be well over 10 million. Polish Americans are the largest European ethnic group in the United States of Slavic origin.