When you think of Christmas, you usually picture cold winters and snow angels, hot cocoa, and Frosty the Snowman. Most usually don’t think of golden brown tans or weather so hot you can fry an egg on a car window. Miami serves as a Holiday enigma, a universal contradiction to all ideas of what winter should be. Instead of building snow people and going sledding, Miami residents can usually be seen boating or taking a trip to sunny Key Largo during the Holiday season.
As a Florida native, I have firsthand experience with exactly what it means to have an authentic Miami Christmas. Considering the singularity of Miami Holidays, I was curious to see just how the rest of the world experiences the best time of the year. So I ventured from the Sunshine State to the concrete jungle, New York City.
I had been to New York before, but never during this season. The first thing I noticed was the toe-numbing, hand-freezing temperatures. Mind you, I am used to the coldest temperature of the year being a mild 70 degrees so I may be somewhat weather-sensitive in this scenario. Despite the uncomfortable weather, as soon as I stepped off that plane, one thing became clear, Christmas was in the air.
Whether this be the colorful Christmas lights lining each city corner or the 50-foot pine tree planted in the middle of Rockefeller Center, New York seemed to be exploding with Holiday cheer. I also noticed that there were way more people than when I previously visited simply because the season seemed to coincide with the very nature of the city.
Instead of sandy beaches and palm trees, the landscape was filled to the brim with skyscrapers covered by clouds and anxious vendors selling hot dogs and shouting holiday wishes. The people in New York were also very different in the sense that they walked with a purpose. They were also much louder and less refined. In Miami, a simple Merry Christmas would do, but in the big city, Merry Christmas is amplified by singing the entirety of Wham’s Last Christmas in high notes.
New York is overall a very loud city. With carriage bikes lined in fur playing Mariah Cary’s Christmas songs on each street, every moment seemed like it was part of a montage from Home Alone.
This was a huge part of the reason that it felt so much like Christmas there because there was no possible way to forget it. Whether this be carols in the street Christmas truck advertisements or Bryant Park’s Christmas market, Holiday cheer was permanently tattooed into my brain making it impossible to forget, even when coming back to Miami.
Regardless of where holidays are spent, they are always a special time filled with joy and excitement for all. Whether Christmas morning is spent in 30-degree temperatures sipping hot chocolate or on the beach in your favorite swimsuit, the festivity of the holiday is nevertheless just as special, as it only comes along once a year!
