Christmastime in the city

It's my second Christmas that I will be spending in New York, and it really does feel like I am home for the holidays. 

I still get butterflies in my stomach at the first real snowfall of the season.  The amount of snow that we get in the city is nothing compared to Wisconsin, but there's something magical about walking home through Madison Square Park, Shake Shack trimmed with lights and a layer of white covering the ground.

 

December always makes me nostalgic for the traditions of childhood, but I'm realizing the beauty in carrying on those traditions in my own fashion (I will probably always use the same Christmas cookie recipe) and finding new ones to make the season special.  Why do I love Christmas in the city so much?  It's ice skating in Bryant Park and shopping at the holiday market in Union Square.  It's the vendors selling Christmas trees on every street corner, and the most elegant tree of all displayed in Rockefeller Center.  It's the artistic department store windows, the snowflake lights on the front of Saks & Company and hearing Carol of the Bells playing from the storefront.

Even more than the beauty of the city, or hearing Christmas carols in every coffeeshop, it's the people who I have been lucky enough to spend the holidays with over the past two years that make it feel like I am home for the holidays.  It's the parties and the couch guests for weeks on end, friends who are passing through to experience the magic of the city at this time of the year or to ring in the new year.  

Wherever you are this holiday season, I hope that you are surrounded by people you love.