YOU call this terror? A man in a crimson suit, smelling vaguely of smoke and lunch, stood planted between Saks Fifth Avenue and the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree – the geographic epicenter of the retail experience.
You didn’t have to read the paper to know this corner was scary, but not for the reasons posted on the 6 o’clock news. It was the sheer tonnage of humanity that funneled through these streets – slow-moving tourists colliding with harried New Yorkers, in a series of furious sidewalk smash-ups.
But the pulsating throng of shoppers and gawkers parted for the man in the suit, whose ill-fitting beard sat below a red-tinged nose. Santa, you see, was making an emergency cell phone call.
“He’s talking to my friend in Florida,” reported Loretta Williams, of The Bronx, laughing.
“This Santa is very special. He’s a New York Santa!”
Can’t argue with that.
This was the year the terrorists tried to kill Christmas in New York. And it also was the year that Americans rose up and said, “No way!”
It may be the holiday spirit and New York attitude. Or just a desperate need to grab mom a last-minute tchotchke. Whatever. No way a terror threat was going to steal this Christmas, Hannukkah, Kwanzaa or post-Ramadan season.
Out-of-towners were nervous, but present.
“I wasn’t coming,” said a wary-looking Mary Ellen Makinen of Rockland County, who almost jumped when I approached. “I’m just worried about suicide bombers of something.”
Fear of bombers was trumped by fear of disappointing her 16-year-old daughter, Brittany, and five of her friends, who’d planned this day of shopping a month ago.
“I almost didn’t come,” repeated Barbara Chittenden of New Jersey.
But they did come. And how.
New Yorkers displayed a tough mix of fatalism and optimism.
“I just figure if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen,” said Jennifer Brazil of Manhattan, toting Edie, 2, and Carolyn, 5, to the Saks holiday windows.
“You’re not safer if you stay home. You might as well enjoy yourself.”
And these words – familiar and defiant – from Kathy, who flew in from Florida with her family: “It seems to me that if you let your life get taken over by fear, they’ve won.”
Was Santa – he insisted his name was Santa Claus – a bit nervous?
“Nah!”
You gotta believe.