In 2023, 6.5 million tourists came to New York City between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I assume the number was about the same or larger this year. Yesterday, they were massed in hordes in midtown and around Times Square, and I bumped into (literally) many of them. I had little choice about being there – only slightly less than a soldier in combat when the sergeant barks “move out.” Otherwise, I would not have gone.
I suppose tourists – in quest of a moment in a storybook/pop-song dream of Christmas in New York – go to midtown because that’s where they think they are most likely to find it. They must surely be disappointed.
Down the page, I will get to the ways Christmas in New York can be well worth the cost and inconvenience, but first, still smarting from the near-death experience of my recent foray into midtown, I will offer a realistic description of what to expect if you don’t go about your trip with care.
Whoever wrote the holiday staple “Silver Bells” had a real good imagination. You probably know the words; it’s played everywhere and constantly throughout the season.
“Silver bells, silver bells. It’s Christmastime in the city… city sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style…children laughing, people passing, meeting smile after smile…and on every street corner you’ll hear silver bells.”
If there are any silver bells ring-a-linging on New York City street corners at Christmastime (most unlikely), you won’t be able to hear them over all the other noise, notably diesel trucks, honking taxis, and sirens.
The other day, when I exited the Times Square subway station, I was treated to a concert by two guys under an echoing sidewalk shed beating out rhythms on plastic buckets and a drum set. If the federal government overregulates life half as much as Republicans think, those guys would be required to pass out hearing protection. Three blocks on, I came to a Salvation Army lass and her kettle. In place of the usual hand bell, she employed a big speaker blasting rap. Maybe that adaptation resulted in more donations, but it did little to get me in the Christmas spirit.
And the stirring vision of “people passing” and “meeting smile after smile”? People do not so much “pass” as jockey for position. Nor do they smile. They stare at their phones.
A stop at Macy’s is a huge mistake. The only miracle on 34th Street is surviving the crowds. You could die and not be found until sometime after New Year’s before you even get into the store.
The area around the celebrated Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center is as jammed as a subway enroute to a Yankees game.
But still, at its best, Christmas in New York City can be every bit as cheerful – joyous even – as it is said to be in song and story. It just requires a little strategy. Choose carefully which attractions to see and when to visit them. Watch on television the New Year’s Eve ball dropping in Times Square. Go to Rockefeller Center early in the morning, say at five, when the lights are turned on, and you’ll actually be able to see the tree.
The Metropolitan Museum is crowded, too, but it’s worth putting up with that crowd to see the angel tree and creche with their eighteenth-century Neapolitan baroque figures.
There are churches large and small, and at Christmastime, they offer more services than usual, and many present concerts with seasonal music. I imagine they would be a special treat even for nonChristians.
Take a walk just about anywhere not midtown. Should you be so fortunate as to be in newly falling snow while in one of the picture-postcard parks or on an uptown street inhaling the aroma of fir trees as you pass sidewalk Christmas tree vendors, you will know the magic of Christmas in New York just as you had hoped you would when you were packing for it back home in Cypress Falls
If none of this works for you, give yourself this little Christmas gift: pretend you have no GPS and ask someone for directions. Chances are you will get a courteous, friendly answer that is anything but the negative stereotype of New Yorkers. Try it several times. It’s just the antidote to crowding and noise.
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