As a newcomer to NYC, I couldn’t wait for December to arrive. I wanted to experience the Christmas holidays in (what I considered) the most magical city in the world. So I visited Rockefeller Center and squeezed myself through the crowds to squint from afar at the world’s most famous Christmas tree. As a student, I couldn’t afford the $40 fee to skate in the tiny ice rink. So I just shuffled and swayed and bumped shoulders with the crowd. I gawked at the tree, the lights, the ads, the windows. Instead of feeling swept away with Christmas joy, I was just overwhelmed with the unrelenting jingle of cheap pop music and the ubiquitous corporate advertisements. It felt shamelessly commercial rather than festive.  It was nothing like the holiday magic I’d imagined.

The tree (to me) seemed decorated without any variety or imagination. There were no ribbons, no balls, no handmade ornaments. Just a lot of lights - too many. So many I could barely even make out the green branches. The tree was so dwarfed by the surrounding skyscrapers that it didn’t even look big. I had read about the yearly search for the perfect tree - how it was scouted, and chosen for stardom as if from angels on high. It seemed sad for this majestic tree to end up there, rudely uprooted, weighed down with lights and decorations, choking on the city air, far away from its other tree friends and the birds who used to make homes in its branches. How much it must miss the its sylvanian home! 

One of my strongest memories is of a very glamorous but very angry woman pushing through the crowd, shouting  ‘Enough with this Christmas shit!’ While I was put off by her vitriol, I could somewhat relate. There’s not much holiday cheer in these images. People rarely look happy - more often a bit glazed-over, perhaps overwhelmed by an exhausting day of shopping. To me, these photos embody my disillusionment with NYC - a place where the multitudinous offerings from the world’s greatest bazaar ultimately have very little real value, and bring very little joy.