Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager have a plan in place for the 2024 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
“Last year, Hoda and I came up with this secret symbol, which was Hoda brushing her teeth with a finger,” Bush Hager, 43, said on the Wednesday episode of “Today With Hoda & Jenna.”
Kotb, 60, added that the symbol was an “indicator that I was thinking of Jenna.”
This Thanksgiving will mark the last holiday that the fourth hour “Today” co-hosts celebrate on air as Kotb is set to exit the show in early 2025.
The anchor shared she has another sweet signal planned for the parade.
“I’ve been thinking, like, ‘What could it possibly be?’ And there’s only one thing it could be,” Kotb said, noting she’ll be replicating a dance move from Matt Rogers’ “RockaFellaCenta” music video.
In the track, Rogers, 34, sings, “I wanna see Jenna Bush Hager come out the building / Because that’s where she works.” As he belts out the lyric in the music video, his “Las Culturistas” podcast co-host, Bowen Yang, shakes his arms as they dance with Kotb and Bush Hager.
“So, whenever I see Jenna, I go like this [dances],” she continued before busting a move. Bush Hager echoed her bestie’s sentiments: “We do it together. It’s sort of our call sign.”
And Bush Hager is sure to stay glued to the television after missing Kotb’s gesture last year.
“Our [Christmas] tree fell over at the beginning of the parade with all the stuff on it,” the anchor confessed. “I had paused [the parade] because I was looking for [Hoda’s signal], and somebody texted me and tons [social media users said], ‘Hey Jenna, go, go. She did it, she did it.’ So then, we got to watch.”
Bush Hager shared a sweet shout-out on social media, posting a screenshot of Kotb pretending to wipe lipstick off her teeth from last year’s parade broadcast.
“What a true one @hodakotb! Her secret sign!!!” she captioned her 2023 Instagram post.
A month later, Rogers and Yang, 34, appeared on “Hoda & Jenna” to perform their cheeky holiday track live.
“It’s the giving season, you guys. I’m giving you a theme song. I’m like, ‘What can I do to offer back to the culture?’” Rogers told the duo when it came to what inspired his track. “I’m walking around Rockefeller Center, which is just the most majestic place in town. And I was like, ‘RockaFellaCenta.’ I think it just popped into my head. I was like, ‘Let me put this on a full-length album.’”
Kotb started in 2007 as a host of “Today’s” first fourth-hour weekday morning, and reflected on her decadeslong career with the network in an emotional letter after announcing her departure earlier this year.
“My time at NBC has been the longest professional love affair of my life,” she penned at the time. “But only because you’ve been beside me on this 26-year adventure. Looking back, the math is nuts. 26 years at NBC News — Ten years at ‘Dateline,’ seven on the seven o’clock hour, sixteen on the ten o’clock hour.”
“I’m picturing your faces and your families and all the ways you’ve lifted me up and inspired me,” Kotb noted. “That’s my heart singing. So many of my professional relationships have become some of my most cherished friendships.”
Though she’s been thinking of the move “for a while,” she realized she’s truly ready for a change in her life.
“My sixtieth birthday celebration on the Plaza felt like a shift,” Kotb concluded. “Like a massive, joyful YES, you are! I saw it all so clearly: My broadcast career has been beyond meaningful, a new decade of my life lies ahead, and now my daughters and my mom need and deserve a bigger slice of my time pie. I will miss you all desperately, but I’m ready and excited.”
The anchor then spoke candidly about her decision on air.
“I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60, and to try something new,” she said through tears. “I remembered standing outside looking at these beautiful bunch of people with these gorgeous signs, and I thought, ‘This is what the top of the wave feels like for me.’ And I thought it can’t get better, and I decided that this is the right time for me to kind of move on.”
Kotb, who is mom to daughters, Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, admitted that this pivot is meant to help her focus on her family more.
“Obviously I had my kiddos late in life, and I was thinking that they deserve a bigger piece of my time pie that I have,” she continued. “I feel like we only have a finite amount of time. And so, with all that being said, this is the hardest thing in the world.”
Craig Melvin will succeed her as Savannah Guthrie’s “Today” co-anchor, and the fourth hour will then become “Today With Jenna & Friends.” Rotating guests will continue to host until Kotb’s replacement is chosen.
The 98th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade airs on NBC and Peacock Thursday, November 28, at 8:30 a.m. ET.
