Last week, my wife and I took our pride and joy (by which I mean our new iPhone 4S) and also our young son to visit Santa Claus at the Macy’s in Herald Square.

As residents of NYC it was a patently idiotic thing to do, as was visiting Rockefeller Center the week before; we’re not tourists, why would we subject ourselves to acting like them? The crush of people around 30 Rock was insane, and here I was trying to navigate a stroller through this mess of yokels, all of them hoping for a glimpse of Hoda or Tina Fey or the Snoopy balloon, all of them staring wide-eyed at the hot dog vendors and the skyscrapers, all of them losing their minds over a tree that wasn’t even lit in the middle of the day. Or maybe it was. I stood right next to it and didn’t even hazard a glance because who cares? I have one in my living room.

And yet last week we did it again. This time, we somehow made it through unscathed. It really was a miracle.

And that was what sucked about it.

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