Christmas Cheer

The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

Even though Christmas is under siege each year, many traditions are as popular as ever and are rarely criticized.  One of these is the giant Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.

Construction workers erected the first tree just after clearing the ground for the center in 1931.  In Great Fortune: The History of Rockefeller Center, Daniel Okrent notes the 20-foot tree was decorated with "strings of cranberries, garlands of paper, and even a few tin cans."  Others say tin foil from blasting caps was used, too.

It's more involved now.  The tree is usually a Norway Spruce between 75 and 100 feet tall and it must be well proportioned.  Since trees growing in forests generally aren't proportional, the chosen tree has usually been planted for ornamentation and given the space to grow symetrically.  Rockefeller Center personnel have scouted for prospects  in the Northeast and Canada from helicopters for years.

The tree is donated - no compensation is offered - and loaded onto a telescoping trailer.  Then it's driven to the city and hauled through its concrete canyons.  Since the load is over double the length of a typical trailer, it's a nightmare cargo but it always makes it through.

The tree is usually around 50 years old, about halfway through its life expectancy.  But it goes out in style, with 30,000 lights on 5 miles of wire.  It's topped by the 9'6," 550 pound Swarovski Star and enjoys several weeks as the grand attraction in the Big Apple.

But it's just one element of a New York Christmas.  Radio City Music Hall does its spectacular annual Christmas Show.  Although heavy with toy soldiers, Santa Claus and Rockettes routines, it also features a living nativity.

Macy's toy department at Christmas is a hoot because they hire out of work actors to hawk gifts.  One year they sold Little Red Riding Hood cloth dolls.  At first, the doll is Red in a long-skirted dress.  But invert the doll, pull the skirt down over Red's head and grandmother appears!  Then - and this is the climax of the show - flip grandma's bonnet over her face to reveal the back of her head and...it's the Big Bad Wolf!!  The guy pitching it had us in stitches.

These are largely secular expressions of Christmas.  Even so, it's good to see that these traditions seem safe from conflict.  Despite the commercialization, they're still based on a celebration of Christianity and you'd have to be monumentally obtuse not to see it.

Christmas is all around us.  My hometown still puts up a creche on public property, the town I live in decorates a tree on the common and wherever I go, when I say "Merry Christmas" it's happily returned with a smile.  The ACLU, headquartered in NYC, can go broke trying to stamp out Christmas but many see them as misguided, intolerant, mean spirited grinches.  Try as they might, they can't eliminate the faith that's dyed into America's fabric.

Instead of focusing on the critics, let's appreciate that millions of us freely, openly and joyfully show love of Christ.

Merry Christmas!

Photo credit:  offbroadway.broadwayworld.com

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