Reached by phone in Australia before heading home for the holiday break, Mosley says she's looking forward to being part of the parade she's watched all her life.

"It's so nostalgic, because I'm a New Yorker and the parade is ... such a big part of our culture and our year," she says, adding that she remembers watching the parade and "freezing, and then warming up because there are so many people there stepping on your toes. It didn't matter."

"If we couldn't go down on the day," she says, "we would watch the balloons being blown up the day before in the park."

She confesses that her favorite balloon from years past — one that will be in this year's parade — is Kermit the Frog.

"Kermit is my guy, but he always seems to have problems. He is always banging into buildings. It's so sad. So I'll cross my fingers for him this year."

As big a day as Thursday will be for Mosley, it certainly won't hurt her TV show.

"It's such a big milestone for us, because we've had trouble breaking into the American market."

And they'll get quite a spotlight: 90 seconds on NBC. Mosley says they'll sing a song from the current season (available on CD and DVD; see box).

In her time away from the show, Mosley has been acting a little (she did a holiday show last year), traveling, studying voice in France and working with Real Theatreworks, a fledgling Chinatown theater group for which she acts as secretary.

"We did a play festival this summer and we're doing another couple of shows this year.

"We said we really want to do this as a celebration of our new status, and it was just an absolute success. It was going on at the same time as the Fringe Festvial, so we thought we'd have to compete with that. In fact, we had sold-out audiences, over-sold-out audiences, every seat sold."

Originally printed at http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/112004/e0120mosley.html