By Eric Schoen
Who doesn’t love walking around Rockefeller Center during the holiday season. The spirit of Christmas is all over just a few blocks in the Big Apple. As you approach from the Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue) to the West or 5th Avenue to the East, the smell of chestnuts roasting on open fires and hot pretzels covered with the salt we shouldn’t be eating fills the air.
(By the way Christmas falls a mere 3 weeks from this Friday. Completed all your Christmas and Chanukah, Thursday December 10 through Friday, December 18 shopping yet? )
From the West we pass Radio City Music Hall, the home of those fabulous Rockettes. Shows happening 4, 5 times a day during the peak holiday week. The Living Nativity, a reenactment featuring live animals on the stage. March of the Wooden Soldiers with the Rockettes shot by a cannon ball falling precisely like a row of checkers, lined up and pushed down with the touch of a finger. 3D glasses with Santa taking you on a virtual tour of Manhattan ending up at Radio City Music Hall. So much to enjoy during the hour and a half show.
The Radio City Christmas Show won’t be happening this year. We are forced to watch it on a video that we brought home one year from the show as a memory to turn on when we wanted the cheer up.
The big office buildings on 6th Avenue adorned with giant Christmas balls in their fountains and Chanukah menorahs waiting to be lit. The throngs of people just wanting to get a glimpse of people around the world enjoying their first visit to the Big Apple to Experience a New York City Christmas. We wonder if the people will be there this year?
Coming from 5th Avenue we see the gorgeously decorated windows of Saks Fifth Avenue, a store we only wish we had dollars to spend in. You walk in and every type of perfume is for sale, the salesmen and women dressed to evoke the fragrance they represent. If you sampled everything they were offering you would leave smelling more fragrant then a Christmas tree, but the samples are conveniently sprayed on little pieces of paper with the name of the fragrance on it.
Will the salespeople be liberally spraying perfumes and colognes as in years gone by. With COVID I don’t know if that will be happening this year.
Fifth Avenue from Bergdorf Goodman down to Lord and Taylor (now gone except for skeleton stores selling remaining merchandise) filled with shoppers rushing home with their treasures. We see a Gap, a Banana Republic, stores that can be found at any mall in the land but so many specialty stores that are only on 5th Avenue in New York. Was it Abercrombie and Fitch where a model stood shirtless in the doorway taking pictures with passerby’s, a gift to many almost as good as a piece of their clothing meant for those skinny folks out there.
I doubt you will have the opportunity to have your picture with the shirtless man this year. Social distancing. Same holds true for Santa Clauses looking for a few bucks to take a picture with you. Same goes for the Spider-Man and other costumed characters waiting for tips to take a picture with the little ones.
Who can pass St. Patrick’s Cathedral without gazing at this massive edifice or entering up the steps through those gigantic doors to see the wonders inside. Long pews that for Midnight Mass Christmas Eve will be filled with the rich and not so rich lucky to get a ticket to the televised mass, shown on WPIX Channel 11 for so many years. The beautiful restorations done several years ago bringing the church back to its original state. The many chapels each representing a unique feature of the church. For a $2 offering you can light a candle and say a prayer for those in need or for the world.
St. Patrick’s was closed for 14 weeks with 90-95% of revenue lost. It will take a lot to make up the revenue, and with social distancing who knows how many people will be let into the church. If you can visit the church light 2 candles, a personal one with your prayers and one to pray for the life and health of the Cathedral. Put how ever much money you can afford into the collection boxes, and make sure to visit the gift shop where you can make purchases of commemorative items as gifts in time for the holidays.
You don’t have to be Catholic to visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral. When headed to Radio City Shows my parents together with my sister and I would go visit the Cathedral and light candles saying individual prayers for peace in the world or good health for those in need. My parents are long gone, but my sister and I still make it a habit of visiting St. Pat’s and lighting a candle absorbing the heat it lets off and saying prayers for the ones we love.
The ice skating Rink at Rockefeller Center, surrounded by the flags of the world is not to be missed. We aren’t big ice skaters in my family, my sister having an experience on the ice in the Catskill Mountains while she was in high school that put her leg in a cast from her toes to her waist. But watching the many people, some professionally gliding the ice with ease and many holding the walls trying not too fall down is the quintessential New York experience. Having breakfast, lunch or dinner overlooking the skating rink behind giant glass windows with the warmth of coffee and pancakes and French toast is an only in New York experience everyone should enjoy.
The pandemic has cut the number of people who can safely skate on the ice this year. We only hope that all of those who want to take a twirl about the rink with have the opportunity to do so.
And a few steps away from the three is something known around the world. The big beautiful Rockefeller Christmas tree. Adorned in Christmas lights, it’s simply magic. Selected from among many choices all usually within a 5-6 hour maximum travel range, it has come to represent what Christmas is all about. We stand in its glow, watch the majestic branches sway in the wind, and yes friends this simple tree decorated with lights brings the whole Rockefeller Center Christmas experience to life. Our loved ones stand beneath the tree holding hands, kissing, hugging, greeting strangers while at the same time our cameras are snapping pictures as souvenirs of the occasion.
Hark the Herald Angels Sing! Our visit to the tree will be limited to a mere 5 minutes this year. Ticketed at that. If we can obtain tickets 5 minutes is certainly not enough time to absorb America’s Christmas Tree but the rules are the rules.
And so dear friends the holidays and in particular the New York Experience will be somewhat different this year. We are told that the COVID-19 vaccinations are on their way. If they aren’t here earlier let’s hope that Santa Claus has them on his sleigh Christmas Eve so we can get back to normal next year. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Stay socially distant.
Leave Santa an extra cookie this year, or more importantly help those who cannot afford food with a Christmas or Chanukah meal. To you and yours Happy Holidays!
Reach Eric Schoen at thistooisyonkers@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @ericyonkers. Listen to Eric Schoen and Dan Murphy on the Westchester Rising Radio Show Thursday’s from 10-11 a.m. On WVOX 1460 AM, go to WVOX.com and click the arrow to listen to the live stream or download the WVOX app from the App Store free of charge.
