BY TARA BURKE

Last Wednesday was the annual Rockefeller Christmas Tree Lighting in the city. Cailin and I had only watched the lighting on T.V., so we decided to stop by the area and check it out for ourselves after work. We had no idea if we were going to be able to see it since it attracts a large crowd of tourists and New Yorkers alike, but despite our doubts we headed straight to Rockefeller Center at 5pm. As we suspected it was crazy crowded and we couldn’t even get to the parts of the street where you have a view of the tree. Many of the streets were barricaded off and at one point my friend and I even got stuck on 50th St. as they wouldn’t let us exit onto 6th or 5th Ave! At that point we hadn’t met up with Cailin yet and we thought we may never do so since we were separated by the barricades on opposite blocks. Many of the blocks were being fenced off because of the protests happening about the grand jury decision in the Eric Garner case.

After awhile we were able to find each other and managed to find a good spot to see the tree by going through the Rockefeller Concourse. Overall it was fun to listen to all the performances (we couldn’t see them from where we were, but they have a lot of screens placed on the buildings to watch them) and see the Today Show anchors in action. I liked Seth MacFarlane’s & Sara Bareilles’ duet of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” best.

Once the show was over they counted down to the tree lighting and you could really feel the holiday spirit when all 45,000 led lights and the Swarovski Crystal Star weighing 550 lbs. flicked on! As always the Christmas tree was beautiful and it was fun to be in the mix of all the NYC Christmas festivities.