I often come down hard on this beloved city of mine. I lament its garbage bag-filled streets and asshole-filled subways. I make fun of douchebags with long umbrellas and scoff when a restaurant thinks they are allowed to have a wait for seating (this isn't Long Island!)
But every once in a while, I am still touched and moved by this place.
We are a playground, a college campus, an imaginary world full of people who don't want to grow up. Who live 3 and 4 people to a closet just to get by and be in the thick of it. We are a strong group of folks who will live life, dammit, however we have to.
These little Christmas tree stands are a microcosm of New Yorkers. They pop up along the side of streets and avenues. It's so uniquely New York. In the suburbs you have the large parking lots of shopping malls and fire departments. But there is no such room here, we're all too crammed to allow it. So instead, they set up these rows of Christmas trees so that people can still have their Christmas. God dammit, Christmas will find a way.
And something even more uniquely NYC than that? The tiny Christmas trees. Every stand has a nice selection of potted "trees" for those of us in tiny spaces. So, even if our low-hanging ceilings won't allow the 8 foot pine-y wildebeests we remember from our childhood, at least we can have something.
Nothing is better than walking uptown on a frosty night, through the alternating scents of gyro, pizza, and barroom floor when, all of a sudden, you are hit by a strong scent of pine. It relaxes you. It makes you feel like Christmas.
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