Revival of Spirit
Bah Humbug! For the last decade and a half I’ve found myself, shoulders slumped, head back and eyes rolling for the better part of the month of December. After a couple of consecutively bad holidays I was most inclined to simply fast forward through the month and try to treat it as a continuation of November – business as usual. This is also when Halloween, recognizing the void, swept in and became my lone favorite holiday as if happy to stamp out the childhood cheer.
But of course the reality is that Christmas is inevitable, unavoidable and, frankly, right up in your face for a good four weeks no matter how apathetic my efforts in participation. Now it’s not that I disliked Christmas. I simply saw it as a nuisance and, in the cruel realities of adulthood, harbored almost no delusions of innocence of its magic.
However, something has happened very recently. I’ve actually grown more tolerant of the season. It all began during a business trip to New York in December of 2010. When the days were at their shortest and the darkness bore heavy on motivation I managed to wander from my Grand Central hotel to join the pilgrimage to Rockefeller Center. The dark narrow streets became alive and vibrant. We gathered above the blur of twirling ice skaters, took photos under the sparkling 60 foot Norway Spruce and gawked at playful children and adults alike through the windows of the Lego store. Drifting twinkle-eyed up 5th Avenue I stood in line to view the ostentatious window displays – Sach’s, Cartier, Bergdorf Goodman. A biting chill was in the air and the brisk wind wafted unfamiliar smells around my face. I had discovered that chestnut roasting is an actual active practice and not only relegated to dated songs of yore.
Eventually, against all my predispositions, I somehow found myself at FAO Schwartz squeezing through a gauntlet of fluff and fur and braving potential disfiguring knee-capping by fly-by children. I’d come to find a plush novelty souvenir for my three month old daughter. The miraculous thing is that not only did I not feel like clothes-lining little Timmy Mischief but I actually kinda enjoyed the chaotic exuberance. This may be the clue to the apparent revival of my holiday spirit. Could it be that having a child of my own has rekindled some of the magic and mystery of the Christmas season? Could she, aided by the magnificence of Christmas in New York, actually rid my brain of spiders and remove the garlic from my soul?
Well let’s just say my radio isn’t set to the local 24 hour Christmas music station, I haven’t replaced my stocking cap with a Santa hat and I don’t have a wreath hanging from the grill of my Ford. But since my first encounter with New York’s Christmas cheer it is possible that my heart has grown a size.
Herald Angels
They sing and they trumpet too. But their message isn’t only glory to the new born king. It’s also to introduce the wildly popular and magical dancing light show dressing the massive facade of Sach’s Fifth Avenue. Prime viewing real estate is at a premium on a brisk December night but there are no bad seats for this show. Little is more fitting that the biggest attraction in New York at Christmastime, second only to the adjacent Rockefeller Center ice rink and tree, is a ballooning department store display. The twinkle-eyed gawkers are quite justified however in their loitering. Sach’s has managed to steal hoards of heads away from the inspiring yet rather static 65 foot Rockefeller Center Christmas spruce with its thoughtful and well-executed theater of music and simple white lights creating the perfect bookend for the Channel Gardens and Promenade and one of the greatest holiday destinations in the world. Of course this is America and the heart of America’s greatest city so it’s expected that there be a gratuitous private commercial representative to the holiday message. Intuitively crafted and expertly balanced.
Tropical Snow
“…when least expected, tell-tale signs of Christmas cheer arose in pretty extraordinary ways throughout the Yucatan. Most town plazas were capped with enormous and elaborately decorated Christmas trees complete with garland and dusted in at least two and a half inches of phony snowfall. The Palacio de Gobierno in Mérida was one such participant which had a festive display of good tidings, as added to their snowy tree was a large sleigh. I can imagine that this could be confusing for toddlers of the tropics who have never seen snow as a wheel-less sleigh must seem like the most useless mode of transportation. Evidently the traditional German vision of Christmas has a monopoly on the whole of North American tradition.”
My Maya travel narrative: The Travel Companion from the Realm of the Maya
Bryant Park Skate
It was my last day in New York and my only real free time. I was out the door of the Fitzpatrick by 7AM and didn’t need to check out until 11. By 9 my fingers were numb and the backs of my hands were starting to tingle. Luckily inspired by the slowly rising sun, I forged ahead, passing a cornucopia of cafes, bakeries and other inviting warming huts including the pseudo-famous Brasserie Les Halles which I stumbled on by complete chance. The sun takes an excruciatingly long time to emerge above the forest of steel, masonry and glass in New York and inversely the days are shorter as its low peak horizon may never clear the tallest buildings.
At modest and prized clearings like Bryant Park, reflex stretching of the neck and deep breaths are in order. And finally the tops of buildings and even micro skylines can once and for all be seen and appreciated. The ice rink was already vibrating with suffocated New Yorkers who come to unfold themselves from their daily sardine tin environments. On the loud speakers Sinatra, Deano, Bublé and other Christmas crooners provided the only appropriate New York soundtrack to the whole spectacle – one that screamed the holiday season with the most bold of New York accents.
This photo is an 3 exposure HDR panoramic with a total of 9 exposures. I particularly love the scope of this single photo (albeit a wide panoramic). Some of the greatest landmarks in New York and conversely some of the greatest symbols in the history of urbanization are represented. Front and center is the New York Public Library, from left to right, the GE Building at Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building spire peaking over closer buildings, the black Bryant Park Hotel and the Empire State Building.
Lydia’s First Christmas
Christmas’s are one of the few things made of magic. Life somehow transforms into the supernatural for a few days. However at three months and some change I can’t imagine that Christmas is really any more surreal than the rest of life thus far. By the looks of little Lydia life in general must be pretty good. It is possible that there’s some sort of innate sixth sense that children are born with that senses the energy and aura of the season, who knows? Often I do get one of those glances from her that would suggest she’s got some insights well beyond her very young age. As if to say “I know more than you think pal!”
Santa Ornament
Christmas trees are loads of fun to take photos of. One of the biggest surprises to me is how long popcorn lasts. Actually, I’d be interested if popcorn is actually a choice tree decorator. I’d imagine it’s a bit of a lost art these days. Our strands have been decorating our trees for six plus years and they are nearly as intact as when they were popped and strung. And that’s a good thing considering how long it takes to string popcorn. Another piece of advice about decorating with popcorn is to keep it high and out of reach of hungry pets. I’ve caught Archie nibbling on the tree on a number of occasions. He obviously still thinks the popcorn is fresh as well.
Manhattan’s Christmas Family Room
For a guy from the humble Midwest, New York City can be a tad overwhelming. Walls of masonry and glass form perpetual blinders in every direction. Without a compass, bearings aren’t easy to come by when those walls start to close in. Never fear however! There certainly are locations that will make the most lost soul feel right at home. Or at least right home in the classic New York sense of the phrase. I found that family room comfort zone truly does exist at Rockefeller Center.
At Rockefeller, during the month of December, everyone has something in common – Christmas. Swarming with curious Midwesterners, wide-eyed Europeans with surgically implanted smiles, Asians incapable of detaching cameras from eye-sockets, local New Yorkers milling about with that certain air of pride as if the entire city block were an extension of their own living room, Rockefeller plaza, the home of NBC (love it or hate it) and masterpiece Deco architecture really is the heart of the city. In New York where home is rarely more than a 600 square foot room with a tub in the kitchen the Rockefeller Christmas tree and festivities are truly something to be proud of and for millions of New Yorkers to claim as their own.
I don’t know which group this intimate couple finds themselves but capturing their tender moment was an unexpected surprise to me. An open shutter even in the busiest of intersections can reveal the warmest of human affection.
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