Happy Holidays

Naturally, thanksgiving marked the official start to the holiday seasons and the countdown to the end of the year.

The trees are drizzled with fairy lights and every store is trying their best to lure everyone in with huge savings (or so they claim) and generally encouraging spending beyond a sane level.


Now NY is pretty much populated all year around, but it seems as the holidays (yes, for political correctness, we are not allow to say Christmas, or rather, you have to also include Hanukkah, and other religious holidays around this time of the year) drew near, it just seems to get more and more congested on the streets, in the subway, in the line to the cashier in the shops.

Christmas markets have been setup around town in various parks. Merchandises range from the usual home ware, jewelry, clothing to very imaginative art and hand crafts.

A couple of weekends ago, I went to the markets at Union Square and Bryant Park and they were a lot of fun to see and let me tell you, every place has its own real Christmas tree, all decked out with fairy lights and fantastic decorations.


That’s another thing – it is actually common to find people buying a real pine tree to put up at home. I don’t know what the art of choosing the right tree is, but I know it is a big deal when it comes to choosing the tree to go up in front of the Rockefeller Center. Apparently every year, helicopters fly all over the country and they select “the tree” from someone’s backyard (well in reality I think it is more likely from a tree farm of sort) and ship it from where ever it is all the way back to NY to hoist up in front of the Rockefeller Center.


After spending Christmas in shorts and t-shirts for so many years, I thought I would get a White Christmas this time, but NY is actually not all that cold at the moment and we hadn’t had any snow so far. At least it is winter and I can put on my scarf and coat and order a steamy hot cup of gingerbread latte at Starbucks (not the best tasting coffee in the world but it will do).