White Christmas
I Went Back East to Find A White Christmas, and This is What I Found...
The old Bing Crosby movie-the 1954 classic, White Christmas; originator of the equally classic, “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas, for those who have never seen it-is cheesy, but who among us hasn’t dreamed of being in the midst of one of those Nineteenth Century Victorian Christmas card scenes, replete with horse-drawn sleighs, jingle bells, and people wearing furry coats and top hats? Or, at the very least, being able to see houses, covered in white, with their Christmas lights twinkling beneath a layer of snow as cars drive by quietly upon a snow-blanketed street. At least, that was the standard to hope for growing up on the East Coast. Living here in California, though, the most Christmassy things I’ve seen are luxury SUVs with wreaths tied to their grills.
It had been a while since I had enjoyed the pleasures of a white Christmas, so I decided to leave the lovely, sunny weather of Santa Barbara to visit the Big Apple, yep, New York City, a place where snowfall is much more likely. Opting to leave Santa Barbara in the afternoon, I arrived late at JFK, necessitating a long wait at the train station. It was definitely cold, but no snow to be seen-not even that metallic scent in the air. In fact, the only thing that betrayed the Christmas season was a sign giving the limited hours of operation on Christmas day.
Riding the subway into the city is always a people-watching treat, and today was no exception. There was a number of tired-looking people sitting there, some doing weird things, some keeping to themselves. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see a drunk Santa Claus board the train at one of the stops in Queens. The only person I observed wearing holiday attire, however, was a crazy homeless guy outside my last stop who, muttering incoherently to himself, grabbed a Christmas-themed Winnie the Pooh doll out of the trash can, letting out a gleeful cackle at his score. I thought it would’ve been nice to see some Christmas gang tagging on the trains, but the transit authority has long since covered the cars with a non-stick coating that the colorful paint won’t adhere to. The graffiti scratched in the windows isn’t as nice to look at.
