I love Christmas lights and decorations. Kansas City, MO is a magical place at Christmas time. Whether the lights of the plaza, Crown center, Union Station, the Power and Light district, or the lights of the Marriott hotel the city just reverberates with color and spectacle. Keep in mind that Kansas City is a small big city with a metro area of about 2 million people. Boston, by contrast is about 7 million, and New York is well over 20 million. With this density of people, my expectations were very high for Christmas decorations in the city.

This month Janet & I returned to New York after visiting Jim & Autumn, in hopes of beginning a tradition of visiting 5th Ave to view the department store windows. I love New York at Christmas! The walk down 5th Avenue is delightful especially in and around Rockefeller Plaza. The store windows are impeccable, and the exterior decorations are over the top. Music plays on loud speakers, and the crowds add to the excitement of the season. I hope to continue this trip every year we live here.

Knowing what New York had to offer, and the bar Kansas City had set, I had high hopes for Boston. I hadn’t been down to the city last year, so I really didn’t know what the city decorations would be like. I’d read that there were lights in Boston Commons, and I’d heard of a musical Christmas tree in Quincy Market.  With this in mind, I begged my wife to come with and see what a Boston Christmas looked like. The day was cold, and it seemed that the sun would never set. Janet’s feet were freezing as we waited in Boston Commons for that elusive magical moment. Sadly, it never came.  Yes, some trees had strands of lights, and yes the tree in Quincy Market played and flashed for five minutes, but somehow the lights of the city failed to provide the spectacle to which I’d become accustomed. Poor Janet was frozen, and tired and I vowed not to drag her down to see the Boston lights again. I suppose not every city can be a Christmas wonderland. Boston certainly has it’s own charms, like these authentic gaslights in Beacon Hill which look like something from a Dickens novel. It’s a different kind of Christmas magic. Maybe someday I’ll go back and try to find the novel way Boston decorates, without comparing it to the spectacle of other cities.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller