Hi friends, welcome back! It doesn’t get more iconic this time of year than the Saks Light Show and Rockefeller Christmas Tree. It’s my favorite spot in the city to be around Christmastime, as with most people.
This years tree is a Norway Spruce from Queensbury, NY. It’s 85 feet tall, 50 feet wide, and weighs over 14 tons. It’s estimated the tree is between 85-90 years old and it’s adorned with over 50,000 multi-colored LED lights spanning 5 miles.
The Swarovski star tree topper was introduced in 2018 and is over 9 feet tall and weighs over 900 pounds. There are 70 spikes with over 3 million crystals. It’s dazzling!
The tree lighting ceremony was on November 30th, but we didn’t attend this year. If you want to know what it’s like to be on the ice rink when the tree is lit for the season, you can read about it here. We enjoyed watching the last few minutes of the show from our comfy couch.
This view never gets old, but it’s quite the fight to get at night with the crowds.
I always like to have one last moment with the tree and enjoy the area with my coffee. The crowds are relatively minimal in the morning, so it’s pretty calm. At night it’s pure chaos, but so magical. Starbucks missed the memo with the lack of festive cups.
Across the street from Rockefeller is Saks Fifth Avenue with their famous light show. Elton John teamed up with Saks this year to support his AIDS Foundation, The Rocket Fund, and performed at the opening night show. The show kicked off on November 22nd featuring music from Elton John alongside over 600,000 lights on the 10-story Fifth Avenue exterior.
The show lasts 3 minutes and is played every ten minutes from 4:30pm to 11:35pm. It includes the songs “Step Into Christmas,” “Cold Heart PNAU Remix,” “Your Song” and “Merry Christmas”. I loved the light show this year, it was a great combination of songs and colors. If you happen to be in NYC the next few weeks you can catch the show until January 3rd.
The windows theme this year is special gifts from years past in collaboration with The Rocket Fund. This can be seen most literally with the rockets in the window.
Rockefeller, Saks, and NYC are such a magical place to visit at Christmastime. I hope you enjoyed this post and that you all get the chance to see it in person one day! I’ve got a few more Christmas posts left, so stay tuned 🙂
