本周出版的《Time Out New York》介绍了市内八处圣诞树。分别位于美国自然史博物馆、布鲁克林市政厅、大都会博物馆、圣约翰大教堂、南街港码头、公园大道54-96街圣诞树群、麦迪逊广场公园以及洛克菲勒中心。

    洛克菲勒中心的圣诞树，吸引人气可能最多，许多市民和游客都会前往观看。

    大都会博物馆的圣诞树，位于博物馆一楼中世纪雕塑大堂，观众可以在温暖的室温之中慢慢观赏，馆方还配着圣诞背景音乐。（有个访客告诉我，许多年前博物馆安排真正的乐队在大厅中演奏呢。）其最大的特色是树上缀满了巴洛克风格的天使，数量超过200个，均为18世纪意大利那波里的古董。

    目前开馆期间每天都会有一次音乐和灯光展演，平日下午4点半，周五和周六即有三场：4点半、5点半和6点半。展演之时，背景音乐响起——《神圣之夜》，灯光从树顶开始乡下照耀。每次展演，总会吸引很多观众驻足观看。音乐结束，常常听到游客的掌声。

    大树底下，展现了丰富多彩的圣诞故事，包括耶稣诞生等等，只是我不太了解圣经，许多故事看不懂。

     这个年度的展览由一个家族捐献，自从1964年开始，已经接近半个世纪。其中的雕塑，均来自这个家族多年来的收藏。

    展览至1月6日止。

    重要提示：1.古董圣诞树不可以拍照。

                      2.博物馆门票建议20元。周一闭馆，重要节日后的周一开馆。周五周六延时服务至晚上9点。

展览资料：

Annual Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche
November 23, 2010–January 6, 2011
Medieval Sculpture Hall

	Learn more about this exhibition.
	View images from this exhibition.

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Beginning Tuesday, November 30, dramatic lighting ceremonies will take place on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays at 4:30 p.m.; and Fridays and Saturdays at 4:30, 5:30, and 6:30 p.m. (Note: On Friday, December 24, Friday, December 31, and a special Holiday Monday on December 27, there will be one lighting ceremony, at 4:30 p.m.)

The exhibit of the crèche is made possible by gifts to The Christmas Tree Fund and the Loretta Hines Howard Fund.

Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche

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Annual Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche The Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a long-established yuletide tradition in New York. The brightly lit, twenty-foot blue spruce—with a collection of eighteenth-century Neapolitan angels and cherubs among its boughs and groups of realistic crèche figures flanking the Nativity scene at its base—once again delight holiday visitors in the Museum's Medieval Sculpture Hall. Set in front of the eighteenth-century Spanish choir screen from the Cathedral of Valladolid, with recorded Christmas music in the background, the installation reflects the spirit of the holiday season. The exhibit of the crèche is made possible by gifts to The Christmas Tree Fund and the Loretta Hines Howard Fund.

The Annual Christmas Display

The annual Christmas display is the result of the generosity, enthusiasm, and dedication of the late Loretta Hines Howard, who began collecting crèche figures in 1925 and soon after conceived the idea of combining the Roman Catholic custom of elaborate Nativity scenes with the tradition of decorated Christmas trees that had developed among the largely Protestant people of northern Europe. This unusual combination first was presented to the public in 1957, when the Metropolitan Museum initially exhibited Mrs. Howard's collection. More than two hundred eighteenth-century Neapolitan crèche figures were given to the Museum by Loretta Hines Howard starting in 1964, and they have been displayed each holiday season for nearly forty years. Linn Howard, Mrs. Howard's daughter, worked with her mother for many years on the annual installation. Since her mother's death in 1982, she has continued to create new settings for the Museum's ensemble and additional figures that she has been lending to the collection. In keeping with family tradition, Linn Howard's daughter, artist Andrea Selby Rossi, now joins her mother each year in creating the display.

The Cherubs and Angels

The Museum's towering tree, glowing with light, is adorned with cherubs and some fifty gracefully suspended angels. The landscape at the base displays the figures and scenery of the Neapolitan Christmas crib. This display mingles the three basic elements traditional in eighteenth-century Naples: the Nativity, with adoring shepherds and their flocks; the procession of the three Magi and their exotically dressed retinue of Asians and Africans; and, most distinctively, a crowd of colorful townspeople and peasants. The theatrical scene is enhanced by a charming assortment of animals—sheep, goats, horses, a camel, and an elephant—and by background pieces serving as the dramatic setting for the Nativity, including the ruins of a Roman temple, several quaint houses, and a typical Italian fountain with a lion's-mask waterspout.

The Origin of Restaging the Nativity

The origin of the popular Christmas custom of restaging the Nativity traditionally is credited to Saint Francis of Assisi. The employment of manmade figures to reenact the hallowed events soon developed and reached its height of complexity and artistic excellence in eighteenth-century Naples. There, local families vied to outdo each other in presenting elaborate and theatrical crèche displays, often assisted by professional stage directors. The finest sculptors of the period—including Giuseppe Sammartino and his pupils Salvatore di Franco, Giuseppe Gori, and Angelo Viva—were called on to model the terracotta heads and shoulders of the extraordinary crèche figures. The Howard collection includes numerous examples of works attributed to them as well as to other prominent artists.

The Cherubs, Angels, and Traditional Nativity Scenarios

The Museum's crèche figures, each a work of art, range from six to twenty inches in height. They have articulated bodies of tow and wire, heads and shoulders modeled in terracotta and polychromed to perfection. The luxurious and colorful costumes, many of which are original, were often sewn by ladies of the collecting families and enriched by jewels, embroideries, and elaborate accessories, including gilded censers, scimitars and daggers, and silver filigree baskets. The placement of the approximately fifty large angels on the Christmas tree and the composition of the crèche figures and landscape vary slightly from year to year as new figures are added.