Let me start off by saying I was born and raised in the South, so all of The Saturday Evening Post imagery of Christmas time exists mostly in my imagination. (Although once every ten years or so we do see a sprinkling of the white stuff right around the holidays.) Even so, all of those bundled sledders, ice skaters with scarves trailing behind, and wet socks by the fireplace are as much of my idea of Christmas as someone from Pennsylvania, Illinois, or Maine.
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Another omnipresent ingredient in the fabric of America’s collective Christmas unconscious are wintery seasonal scenes from the streets of New York City. Whether it’s the Snoopy balloon kicking off the holiday season during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or the lighting of the massive Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, there’s something about Christmas in the Big Apple that all Americans feel part ownership of even though we may never have been in the City in December or at any other time in our lives.
So when actress Jennifer Love Hewitt began sharing wonderful photos from the streets of New York City this Christmas, the frigid urban Yuletide scenes kindled a little fire in my heart and I could swear my computer screen smelled of rock salt, coffee, and cinnamon. You might think I’m joking, but the Ghost Whisperer knows how to take candid photos! (Thanks in part to some sort of nostalgianator 3000 effects after the fact, but still.) Perhaps we should start calling her the Ghost Whisperer of Christmas Present