Of the several mandatory items on every tourist’s “must-see” list of New York, there is one that never seems to get old. There is nothing so wonderful as a Christmas in New York City.
The grand old Christmas traditions are alive here, allowing this city to radiate nostalgia and sentimentality so palpable it’s impossible to resist. 
New York manages to evoke the Christmases of yesteryear with dazzling authenticity. It’s as though every part of the city takes its Christmas legacy very seriously. Vendors start to appear on the street, selling forest-fresh Christmas trees dusted with just enough snow to make you sigh. You are treated to amazing harmonies floating through your window from the carolers on the street below. You are tantalised by smell of roasting chestnuts that are suddenly for sale on every street corner. Grand Christmas trees, lavishly adorned and richly illuminated, materialise in every park and public space. All the big stores reveal their Christmas lights and window displays with much pageantry, attracting crowds in the thousands by having celebrities like Tony Bennett perform at the unveiling. As you turn on your TV you are saturated with images of those iconic Radio City Rockettes, shamelessly promoting their Christmas Spectacular by high-kicking the holiday spirit into morning viewers. New York, my friends, is the home of Christmas.
Here, you can see Christmas explode as you look up that stretch of Fifth Avenue from Rockefeller Center to Central Park, with all its buildings cloaked in a dazzling array of Christmas lights. On the streets implausibly large crowds fight for territory on the footpath, most of them trying to get a glimpse of the intricate Christmas window displays. Nearby, even St Patrick’s Cathedral is not immune to the hysteria. It can seat over 2,200 people, but attending midnight mass on Christmas Eve has become so fashionable you need tickets to get in. The lobby of Bergdorf offers up men dressed as tin soldiers, singing seasonal tunes and posing for photographs. Across the street, shoppers patiently line up around the block to get inside FAO Schwarz, New York’s preeminent toy store. Inside you’ll find $10,000 stuffed animals, choreographed Barbie fashion parades, every action figure imaginable, and the giant keyboard made famous by Tom Hanks in “Big“. Everything, including the big piano, is telling you that it’s Christmas time in the city.
But, it is of course the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and its little ice rink below that is the essence of New York Christmas. To see it is instantly heartwarming, bringing back memories of all those New York romantic movies and their touching scenes of lovers skating hand in hand, demonstrably falling in love at that very moment (or later, as part of a montage with a gentle ballad). If you’re romantic and are happy to wait for hours, you too can pirouette underneath the big tree. Personally, I’ve not been game to test my form on the ice. It is, after all, the most high-profile skating rink in the world, with its audience of hundreds looking from above, each armed with cameras and video equipment.
If you stand across the rink facing the 100 foot Christmas tree, you are treated to the mother of all Christmas tableaux. Never mind that it’s utterly chaotic and bursting with people. It has the power to impress and captivate even the most jaded, tourist-loathing, crowd-averse New Yorker. Christmas lives here.
(Rock Center Rink on a slow day)
