NEW YORK It’s like getting a peek at Santa’s workshop.
A New York City family had a most unusual holiday experience spending the night at the FAO Schwarz toy store in midtown Manhattan, overlooking the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.
The special night came from a collaboration between the well-known toy store and Airbnb, which listed the special event earlier this month.
FAO Schwarz set up accommodations in their store, with a living room looking out on the giant tree, as well as a sleeping area and a dining table setup.
The lucky family had free run of the store, including the giant step-on keyboard known to many from the movie “Big.” They also got a shopping spree.
One of Matt Bliss’s earliest holiday memories is of lying under his grandfather’s special Christmas tree as Lawrence “Bud” Stoecker spun the tree which was created from concentric plastic circles making reflections of light dance in a hypnotizing pattern. “At the time, I didn’t even realize my grandpa had made the tree,” Bliss recalls. “I was probably five or six years old, and I remember crawling underneath the tree and looking up, with each of my brothers on either side of me and my grandfather spinning it slightly, like this incredible kaleidoscope. Growing up, that was the most important thing for me: the vision of this tree on Christmas Eve every year and the feeling that it gave me.”
Even without the pandemic, ‘normal’ has shifted for the Corderos Tanya Marun stands for a portrait at her apartment complex in Tempe, Ariz. Marun typically attends a large family gathering at her aunt’s home in Texas for Christmas. ((Caitlin O Hara for The Washington Post)) Rachael Allen
Dec. 22, 2020
Tanya Marun, 35, has celebrated Christmas at her cousin Mitzy Cordero’s house in Dallas for as long as she can remember. “Have you eaten?” Tanya’s aunts always ask the moment someone walks through the door. Lights twinkle outside the house; inside, garland lines the fireplace and color-coordinated ornaments hang from the Christmas tree. Tables are crammed into the living room for dinner, awaiting the 25 members of the extended Cordero family. The place is always loud with laughter.
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Dec. 21, 2020 10:00 am ET
Around lunchtime on a bright sunny Tuesday the week before Christmas, there was plenty of space to spread out and take selfies in front of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.
âThereâs not as many people as there normally are,â said Alexandra Francisco, a 24-year-old nurse and emergency medical technician from Hawley, Pa. âIt feels weird.â
Ms. Francisco and Ian Andrews, a 25-year-old firefighter and paramedic, took a day trip to New York to see the tree and destress from their jobs as first responders during the coronavirus pandemic. The couple said that while it was nice seeing the Christmas tree without bumping shoulders with other visitors, they nevertheless missed the crowds.