Fifth Avenue Madness

Boyfriend and I made a huge mistake on Saturday. We went to mid-town to do some Christmas shopping for his family. Ordinarily things would have been very busy but not so much taht you couldn't actually squeeze yourself into the stores and buy more material goods probably made in sweatshops overseas. But Fifth Ave. was RIDICULOUS. Maybe even BEYOND RIDICULOUS. Not only were there lines just to GET INTO certain stores (including but not limited to FAO Schwartz, Saks, Barney's and Tiffany's) there were lines for the lines that stretched beyond the blocks. I was literally shoved from block to block. At one point it took us almost twenty minutes to move from 49th and 5th to 51st and 5th. Even Central Park was packed, with lines for the $80 15 minute carriage rides that are apparently super popular during the holidays.

I was amazed. I watched as tourists shoved and squeezed and yelled at each other while often video-taping the windows of Saks and Barneys. I can say they were fantastic, and later on my friend B told me that people actually attend FIT with window design as a focus, which also impressed me. But it was uncomfortable and not at all fun or Christmas-sy. The idea was- a snow covered tree at ROckefeller center, people caroling in front of St. Patrick's. But not the actual walking through the more thn crowded streets and watching as poor exhausted police officers tried to control the crowds who were man-handling their bags from Saks and Macy's and Sephora.

What also amazed me, as well as pissed me off, were the people out there with BABY STROLLERS. Can you think of a worse time to be pushing your scared, screaming child through a crowd? My foot must have been run over at least 8 times and I got hit on several occasions. I couldn't believe that, knowing it was going to be bad, parents wouldn't opt to pay some high school girl $10 an hour to babysit. Even hotels can find you babysitters, and it certainly beats being one of the many frustrated parents I saw watching as their child clamored for a toy or picture with Santa or screamed out of pure anxiety from being shoved into something so merciless and horrible. I've always thought that parents should never take their kids into toy stores near Christmas- the temptation is too great for them, and too often they'll end up buying their child something after a screaming fit takes place in front of already disgruntled employees. It's just a bad idea. There are so many other things to do in the city- ice skating and Radio City Music Hall and The Nutcracker and walks in the parks that it is almost cruel, in my eyes, to put your child under so much stress and then, on top of that, expect them to behave themselves.

So after a couple of hours of this Hell, which made me feel like I was watching my life pass before my eyes, we finally gave up and went home, empty handed and hungry. I have never been so relieved to be back downtown, where there were plenty of people, but nothing I wasn't used to or thought I could handle. We even scored a table at Chipotle while throwing back tacos and burritos and swearing that we would never do that again. Nothing was accomplished except a lot of shoulder tension.

What worries me is that my mother is coming up here on Friday and staying the weekend. I know she wants to go uptown and see all the lights and stuff but at this point I'm not even sure I'm up for it. I have a better mind to take her to some of the outer burroughs and eat in Astoria or Brooklyn rather than deal with the crowds that will most likely only increase the closer it gets to the holidays.