The intimacy of the holidays

"City Crowd, Cop and Ear" by A. Robert Bermelin (1980)
Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thanks to holiday tourism, Manhattan's population increases by anything up to five times during the November to January period.  Great for the economy, but a nightmare for your nerves!

Having said that, I've started my holiday season in a very positive state of mind.  After all, November is my favourite month of the year in New York.  The weather is cooler, the clothes are more snuggly, and there's holiday anticipation in the air.

I spent the weekend pulling my winter clothes out of storage and donating whatever summer clothes no longer fit, or which had otherwise seen better days.  I'm no fashionista, but it's great to be back in opaque tights and knee-high boots again.

My first batch of home-made pumpkin soup is now in my fridge, ready to heat and serve after a busy day at work.  Such domesticity has a shelf-life about as long as the soup itself, but let's ignore that.

Central Park is at its most colourful right now, and the Fall Foliage map is a great reference point to see all the trees at their best.

It seems that every day I get emails reminding me to order my Thanksgiving turkey - and every side-dish I could possibly imagine!  I worked out that this year will be my 7th Thanksgiving celebration, which sounds terribly lucky.  While I'd usually prefer savoury dishes over sweet, I can never refuse roasted sweet potatoes topped with toasted marshmallows and brown sugar.  Don't knock 'em till you've tried 'em, honestly!

Equally irresistible are the ticket offers for The Nutcracker and the Radio City Musical Hall Christmas Spectacular, both of which I absolutely love and would see multiple times over.

And I was also a bit excited that the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree has been selected on a farm in Pennsylvania, and the 85-foot monster will be felled tomorrow.  The tree-lighting ceremony will be held in New York on 3 December, bringing traffic to a standstill and driving all the locals crazy.  I usually avoid Rockefeller Plaza like the plague, but there is something magical about the ice skating rink and the Christmas tree - even just the promise of them is exciting.

For me, even though there are five times the number of people pushing and shoving for spots on the subway and space on the sidewalk, November in New York will always be an affair to remember.