Holiday Scenes

Now that I’m not sloshing through dirty snow or shoving past crowds, I can reflect fondly on Christmas in the city (call it ‘holiday’ all you want PC Patrol, but that’s no Hannukah bush up at Rockefeller center). Having an out-of-town friend come in is the best way to enjoy all the ‘touristy’ stuff in New York, and lucky for me a friend joined me from Philly just in time for all the holiday cheese. We wasted no time in checking out the coup-de-grace of seasonal tourist gawking- the Rockefeller Tree:

Somewhere out there that 4000 year old gnarled Dwarf Pine is chuckling to itself. Each year a paid group seeks out the largest and most beautiful tree in the nation…to chop down and slowly die in front of thousands. The rainbow lights are the final insult.

I’ve been more interested in Saks 5th Ave’s ‘Singing Snowflakes’ display since it caught me by surprise 2 years ago- out of nowhere the whole building started blinking in time to the badass version of ‘Caroling of the Bells’ (itself a spooky bit of Christmas cheer no matter how it’s sung), captivating me through the magic of well-timed light display.

Lines wrap around all the big department stores for viewing their window displays. Unfortunately both Saks and Macy’s windows were sappy Santa stories pandering to kids about the magical wonderment of their missals getting to Santa’s shop of whimsical delight. Meh.

Fortunately the fancier stores went in the random crazy direction, resulting in the following:

Flying bed in a sparkletree? Sure!

Dapper wolf playing piano for a draped chantuse? Why not! It’s Christmas!

As Kent Brockman warned us, KillStorm ’09 bore down on us like a shotgun full of snow:

Perhaps it’s early-onset Cabin Fever, but this is the Christmas tree I whipped up:

Yeah. That is indeed a jug of cat litter holding it up (I couldn’t find the base or top). Happy Holidays, folks!