There really is nothing like Christmas time in New York City. For a guy like me that adores the city and is passionate about all things Christmas, experiencing the wonder and majesty that the city has to offer at this time of year, is a bit of a dream come true & not one I normally get to enjoy. Even when I was here full-time I always went home the day before Thanksgiving and usually returned the day before New Year’s Eve. Only one other time was I here well into December and things didn’t go like they should have. This year, I took full advantage of being here and proceeded to experience as much as I could.
Christmas in Rockefeller Center (taping) – Dec 1st – New York, NY
Here’s a bit a cautionary tale for tourists visiting NYC (especially you Europeans) – When they tell you that the world famous Christmas in Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting is set for Dec 3rd and tell you all the stars that will be performing and you’ve watched for years on television hoping to see in person, what they don’t tell you is most of the performances you are seeing have been taped over several days prior. This was the first of those tapings.
Lady Gaga/Tony Bennett
Having just put out a duet record Cheek to Cheek, Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett (who reguarly performs here each year) were the perfect choice. If you saw the broadcast you saw that they went with a much racier outfit than the rehearsal below.
Thanks to some work I did with Gaga’s anti-bullying campaign Born Brave over the summer, we were invited to watch them rehearse and run through the song??? a few times. It was so insanely cold and freezing and had been raining all day so we didn’t stay much longer and for the actual taping.
Radio City Christmas Spectacular w/ The Rockettes – December 2nd – Radio City Music Hall – New York, NY
The next morning got up bright and early & I wanted to make the most of the first half of the day. What better way than to spend the morning than at Radio City to see the Rockettes perform in their annual Christmas Spectacular?
Radio City – a place I’ve walked by a million times and have never actually seen the inside of. The show sometimes tours outside of city and I actually got to see a muted version of it in Austin about 4 years ago, but to be here and to see the actual Rockettes is a dream come true.
Got to the ticket booth, the woman was so incredibly kind & gave us orchestra center seats for the price of upper balcony and we manged to get to our seats right as the show started!
Santa Claus himself is tasked with tying together the song-and-dance numbers as our jolly emcee After introducing us to the striking Rockettes, who continue to boast their notorious precision in a dance rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas, he jumps into the production as a character in the show’s brief foray into plot.A story of two young brothers, Ben and Patrick who meet Santa while Christmas-shopping for their sister. The classic Rockette number Rag Doll plays as a detour during the boys’ search for the perfect gift
Continuing a tradition over 80 years in the making, the rosy-cheeked Rockettes in the Parade of the Wooden Soldiers faithfully perform their gravity-resistant slow collapse, while the Living Nativity closes out the program in its one-and-only nonsecular vignette. As acts from the original 1933 show, both have become institutions in their own right, inducing thunderous applause from audience members who feel as if they have become part of the New York ritual by witnessing the historic sequences. The show has also gotten a 21st-century facelift with a 3D tour of Manhattan via sleigh ride and a collection of GPS-guided snowflakes that float freely over the crowd.
There’s certainly no want of stimulation during this well-oiled machine of a performance, such a major satisfying way to kick off the Christmas Season, Happy Holidays!
(later that evening) South St Seaport Tree Lighting
With performances from Bebe Rexha and my man Questlove DJ’d the whole affair.
Bebe Rexha
I wasn’t previously familiar with Bebe Rexha but learned a few things about her after this performance, one being that she co-wrote the song The Monster by Eminem.
One thing that is immediately obvious is that she’s insanely good looking and super sexy.
As attractive as she was and sings very well,her image projects a sorta Jersey Shore vibe with this trampy look and songs about binge drinking. She’s too young to be a Real Housewives of.…but she has that “women who throw wine at each other” vibe going for her.
Questlove
After lighting the tree, everybody’s favorite bandleader and one of my favorite DJ’s – Attending his Thurs night Bowl Train party in Brooklyn is a weekly destination for me and it’s always fun to see what he plays outside that setting and tonight he played a really fun and fantastic set.
Christmas in Rockefeller Center – New York, NY
As I mentioned above, tourists, or those uninformed or both, flock to these world famous traditions and one of the big draws other than being a part of its history, is the all-star lineup they promise to perform. But as also mentioned above, the crowd is expectant of seeing ALL of those artists and be a part of what they’ve seen on TV not realizing that most of those performances have been previously taped in the days before.
So a million people show up expecting to see Lady Gaga & other big names not realizing that their not there, and they are so far away from the action that their actually not aware of that fact enough to get them to leave. And why doesn’t it occur to them that since it’s free they will be one of a MILLION others to try?
You have the entire season to see the tree up close at your own convenience and if being there right as its lit, you should ONLY arrive with that expectation ONLY.
Unless you have a pass (only given to NBC & Rockefeller employees and their familes) you really have no reason to come here because you won’t see or hear anything other than the incessant ramblings & rudeness of tourists, packed in like sardines all freezing to death.
While most of the performances were taped over Mon-Tues, the Today show anchors were live in Rockefeller Center to host the show, as well as a hand full of artists performing
LeeAnn Rimes
After a lot of fuss and changing plans LeAnn Rimes finally hit the stage & performed in a warm checkered coat but she briefly thought she was going to have a lot more airtime when Mariah Carey didn’t show up to last night’s pre-recording, but instead her performance was actually cut short when the diva was brought back last minute. LeAnn Rimes even made I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas sound OK, though her bizarre semi-striptease with a bulky overcoat made me wonder if the novelty song was delivering a double-entendre I didn’t catch. She looked fantastic however.
Mariah Carey
Ok, so obviously I have to mention what went down with Mariah Carey – If you didn’t already see the unending coverage of the deriding of her performance here’s a brief recap. Again in another diva moment, she decided not to show up for rehearsal the night before, leading the producers to pull her slot, only to give it back at the zero hour, (because let’s face it, her All I Want For Christmas, is the biggest modern Holiday classic of the last 30 years) which meant that she was going to sing it live with no rehearsal or warmup. That’s how your supposed to do it right? Except apparently that’s out of Mariah Carey 2014’s wheelhouse as she struggled painfully to recreate the song.
Cyndi Lauper
What a joy Cyndi Lauper is and I was glad that she was here. We caught her doing a news broadcast across from Radio City when our show let out yesterday (see above). Those outside of NYC may not realize how beloved she is here in the city and her performance was as spirited & fun as always.
Darius Rucker
But however good or bad these singers were was irrelevant to the larger problem, captured with queasy precision by the image of Darius Rucker crooning — wait for it — White Christmas.Given the circumstances it took balls bigger than the ones shown in this picture to go through with that one.
Pentatonix
Another sign of our times: A group called Pentatonix uploads a series of accapella covers that went viral that lead them to The Sing-Off show and won and that landed them here. The millenial formula: YouTube/Viral Campaign/Singing Competition show/Christmas Special on Major Network –
Trisha Yearwood/Countdown
Finally things wound down and it was time to light the tree – I don’t know if you can see from my perspective in the picture below, but Trisha Yearwood along with the hosts was there to oversee the countdown, to the lighting of the magnificent tree that officially ushers in the Christmas season.
Aftermath:
This gathering started just hours after the controversial grand jury decision not to bring charges in the death of Eric Garner, while most people had already arrived with no knowledge of the verdict (including myself.)
While no protesters made it into the live shots, the hosts acknowledged nearby protests and the day’s decision near the end of the special. “We hope it will be a healthy and joyous and a peaceful holiday season for everyone,” Matt Lauer said.
First of all, let me disclaim that when I arrived I had no knowledge of the Eric Garner verdict, nor did I realize that it was going to be announced during this time.However, I wasn’t exactly blissfully unaware of the civil unrest brewing just outside the Rockefeller perimeter, I was freezing my ass for hours, trapped in a sea of clueless tourists, being one myself as I endured unimaginable cold and other discomforts to experience the Christmas in Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting.
Naturally the news of this inustince immediately sparked a new wave of protests, which have become frequent occurrences in New York City since the grand jury decision in the death of unarmed teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Let me say I am just as outraged & angry over this and the absurd, grotesque abuse of power that is claiming lives of innocent people and further marginalizing minority culture to unspeakable lows.
However the protests seemed misplaced at the holiday celebration, which has a surprisingly long and storied history. Today, the show is a multi-million dollar extravaganza featuring performances, celebrity hosts, thousands of tourists of course Christmas lights, however the event has humble and meaningful beginnings.
The tree lighting tradition began on Christmas Eve in 1931 in the midst of America’s Great Depression. The first ever Rockefeller Christmas tree was erected by a group of construction workers, a 20 foot Christmas tree was placed in the middle of the muddy and dilapidated site that would become the grand Rockefeller Plaza we know today. The creation, even mired in the debt of the Depression, would become one of New York City’s greatest architectural and commercial monuments. In the face of the great depression, the men at the construction site had a grand cause to celebrate on this December 24th because they were about to be paid for their efforts, unlike most of their other colleagues, friends and family. Underneath the first ever Rockefeller Christmas Tree, a clerk sat on a wooden crate and handed out checks to grateful workers. A tree lighting ceremony did not occur, mainly because the tree was adorned with tin cans and scrap paper but only two years later in 1933 the first official ceremony was decreed when a Rockefeller Center publicist organized it.
The tree at Rockefeller Center even served as a symbol during World War II, in 1942; three small trees decorated in ornaments of red, white and blue were placed in the plaza. The trees were replanted following the Christmas season, as per orders of the organizers. In 1944, still wartime, Rockefeller Center and their famous Christmas trees had to keep in line with blackout regulations, meaning that the trees remained unlit. In 1945, in a celebration of the end of World War II and the end of blackout restrictions, the Rockefeller Center organizers employed the use of six ultraviolet light projectors to make all 700 fluorescent globes on that year’s tree glow brightly even in the dark.
Shutting down “Christmas in Rockefeller Center” is not going to make a change in the recent racial tension that has struck the United States. Instead the protests sully a long tradition of celebrating togetherness and hope when facing despair and anguish.
Again I’m just as angry and disgusted by the actions of the current police inscrutability but when I was trying to exit this event and get on the subway and safely to my apartment what I witnessed wasn’t just outraged citizens pushing back. I saw alot of so-called radicals just simply looking for a reason to revolt and the only thing they were convincing me of was their “joiner mentality” and using this as a vehicle to say something more about themselves than righting a serious wrong.
My own personal aftermath –
I know I should have been thinking about Eric Garner and trust me I was, but amid the cold, the rude tourists, the insane protests and my anger for the police and just the whole freaking country at large right now, I needed solace, especially at Christmas. As I was walking away from Rockefeller Center, navigating the unspeakable chaos outside I found it in the most unlikely sources. At that moment I wanted basic comforts – I said to myself, “I need a place to charge my phone, catch my breath, experience human kindness and hopefully eat sushi while doing so” –
I saw a Starbucks that was closed and then I look over and like an answered prayer, I see a sushi place that was open, affordable, clean and warm. I go in am seated next to a socket to charge my phone and like serdendipity was also seated next to the friendliest tourist couple from Alabama. I learned during our time together that they own a restaurant in Moody, Alabama called Bluegrass BBQ and that this was their first time in the city. We had a great time talking & their openness and southern charm were exactly what I needed so if your ever in that part of the country you should stop in and give these fine folks your patronage.
As I was saying my goodbyes to my new friends from Alabama I was walking towards the subway on my way home when I heard a Christmas song coming from somewhere that I’d never heard before. I really fell in love with its tender tone and the lyrics really touched me. Wishing I knew who it was so I could hear it again but shrugged it off thinking I would hear it a million more times before the holidays were over but sadly didn’t until Dec 23rd when I was in a department store shopping when suddenly I heard it over the crackling, primitive intercom system. Did my best to huddle underneath it looking like madmen I’m sure to hear it but still couldn’t make it out over the bad sound & constant interruptions of an overdue clean-up needed in Aisle 4.
I go home to my family that night and while watching the Michael Buble’ Christmas Special, and while keeping it on the same channel after it had ended led us to watching the Kelly Clarkson’s A Cautionary Christmas Music Tale that was so entertaining that we watched the whole thing when like kismet, the final song she sang…….was the song from that day in Rockfeller! It was like I was MEANT to hear this song which turns out is Under the Tree by Kelly Clarkson and it’s not only one of the best Christmas songs I’ve ever heard but perfectly framed my holiday this year.
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!
Photos –
Roy Turner
Michael Loccisano
