the magic holiday shrub

I saw. I conquered. I braved the mighty masses and let myself get hooked by tourist bait.

Yes, my friends, I had to pay a Little Visit to the Rockefeller tree. I've been wanting to go all month, and now I can finally say ... yeah, I walked around a big tree full of blinking lights. A big magic Christmas shrub.

I'm not sure what I was hoping for from the experience, but what I got out of it was:
a) a deep loathing of tourists, touristy crowds and touristy crowds with cameras
b) curiosity over how the city found a tree that big?
c) a financial question: how many of my tax dollars are going towards fueling the frenzy of lights?
d) a new found happiness in staring at window displays, lit up electric angels, bad ice skaters and people desperate enough for a job to dress up as Spongebob Squarepants and Cookie Monster.

Seriously. There were at least three television characters strutting their stuff around the plaza, waiting for people to pay money to be photographed with them. The costumed freaks must breed like rabbits, because by the end of my visit I swear there were more of them bumping around than when I arrived.

The tree itself -- oh, lovely, lovely. She must be a throwback to the Ice Age of mammoth beasts, because I haven't seen anything that large since visiting a dinosaur exhibit as a kid. I loved the fact it was draped in colored lights. White is supposed to be 'classy', but who can deny the happiness in seeing a dozen different colors winking at you from all over a tree? A color convention. I totally dug it.

Saks Fifth Avenue apparently has some sort of manic Carol of the Bells chime that goes off in the evenings as part of their Christmas display. It even has a techno groove and a light show to go along with it, complete with a cast of over sized snowflakes. The best part? The snowflakes have talent. They can blink in time to the music.

Amazing, these New York stores.

The ice skating rink at Rockefeller is so much smaller than it looks on TV. I expected it to be a Rink Royale, something Olympic sized. The reality isn't quite up to par, but the place still looks like a lot of fun. If I didn't have to worry about breaking limbs and ending a music career, I'd have gone out there in a second.

In other news, my neighbor keeps blasting the same Mariah Carey song repeatedly, and I'm praying the MTA strike doesn't happen. Such is life. Final exams are coming up, which means I'll probably be updating this as much as possible to avoid studying.