We had more than one Angel Spectacular this week. Wednesday night was a real bonanza, with back to back Angels, the first in Rockefeller Center and then on the Victoria’s Secret runways.

All these Angels … the traditional ones in Rockefeller Center, and the Victoria’s Secret Angels have lived center stage in my own life, finally coming together this week.

In the Beginning

Every since I was a little girl, I’ve adored white lights … in skyscrapers, looking out airplane windows at night, and on Christmas trees.

Oh yes, and I should include Ms. Ficus Tree, who lived with me for 10 years in Ohio. MFT wore white lights year-round, even when she summered outside on the deck.

I lived in both New York and Columbus in those Victoria’s Secret years.

Ms. Ficus Tree always talked about coming to New York for Christmas, but she never made the trip. We had serious disagreements about her entrenched and unadventurous spirit, and I was forever encouraging her to spread her white-lights, Angels wings in the night sky.

Hoped For Response

I doubt that I’ve ever had colored lights for my own Christmas tree. I want to tell you that my Manhattan-based heart wells up twice as much, when the Rockefeller Center tree wears white lights, instead of colored ones.

Honestly … I’m not sure that she ever wears white lights over the holidays. I may have her confused with the runway Angels, leading to Prometheus and the ice skating rink. Rockefeller Center stole my mind on my first visit to New York.

Watching this gorgeous YouTube video about Christmas in Rockefeller Center just now, the comment about the Angels representing hope caught my attention. Not only do I enjoy celebrations of any kind, but white lights have always been a symbol of great hope to me.

Like so many Germanic and Swedish families — I should throw in my English and Danish grandparents, too, because Anne is truly an American mutt, with grandparents from four different European countries — I was raised in a family that showed not an ounce of physical affection. None.

Gone Ice Fishing

Yet, the Christmas Tree melted the most frozen hearts, living on the Minnesota prairie.

My mom runs a very tight ship, and even she left the Christmas tree alive and lit, until it became a February fire hazzard. One year I wondered if the tree might be hanging around on Valentine’s Day, but she left town on Feb. 11.

I won’t write “thankfully, she left town” because I cried when she was no more. Silly as she looked, I was just fine with the idea of a Christmas tree for Valentine’s Day.

Trudging home at age six or eight — weeks after the presents were opened and the carols were put to bed — I moved ever more slowly towards the breezeway door, wondering if this was the day when normalcy would greet me.

Blue spruces were our favorite.

Snowflake OrnamentAs long as her Christmas Tree branches graced the living room, standing impeccably dressed in the tinsel I draped over her, strand by strand … there was hope for my future.

My brother threw tinsel at the tree, as males willl do … trying to take the short cuts in life on mundane matters like Christmas Tree decorating.

I sighed that familiar, big-sister lament, frustrated with his lack of tinsel-placement precision, and got on the step stool.

The strands strewn carelessly across the summit of our holiday peace symbol were mine for fixing. I didn’t yell at him, imposing my esthetic standards on the whole family. But I placed every strand of tinsel on every branch, until the tree was perfectly beautiful and worthy of greeting a chorus of caroling Angels.

She would never admit it, but I think my mother also had a very soft spot in her heart for the Christmas Tree.

Gifts From Strangers

Flipping through Flickr just now, to find some perfectly gorgeous Rockefeller Christmas Tree photos for you … I found this one from 1954. It got me to thinking long and heard about the place of angels in my life.

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree 1954I had no idea that the white-light angels I so adore … the ones greeting millions of hope-seekers in Rockefeller Center for the last 20 years are … well almost ancient.

Did I see photos like these as a young girl? Were they on some grainy black and white TV … artificial snow mixed with genuine snowflakes, angels calling to me … “Come to New York City, young lady”.

What dreams I had!

These Angels were pure and glorious, alive and centered in the most wonderful city known to my young-girl vision.

Fast Forward

Funny about Angels … and how they took on a very important significance in my life.

Only now, years after leaving, do I understand my ambivalence about the Victoria’s Secret Angels. I’ve always discussed them in consumer psychology terms … why were we putting a bevy of super models between our brand and the American women who loved us.

Please note that I am NOT anti-supermodel. They have their place in marketing.

Trust me, American women couldn’t live without a gift from Victoria’s Secret in those years. The lines wound around shopping malls all over America. If a husband wanted sex for Christmas … well, he knew what to do.

This morning I see the Angels business focus differently. In addition to my profesional judgement, I was being selfish on the subject of wings.

Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show 2009Perhaps I wanted to keep the Real Deal Angels as symbols of hope in my young girl mind. In a career committed to maketing, branding and selling things … I wanted to leave Angels special … sort of like snow globes.

Trust me, I get almost as winesappy over snowglobes, as I do Angels and white lights in skyscrapers.

Smiling in Grey Skies

Call me overly simplistic for not wanting to let go of everything that mattered to me. I’m not sure that I want to grow up, if everything is lost. It must be some kind of anal-retentive holiday resistance.

Who knows what inspires the imagination of a young Dreamer, living in a town of 1000 people, bracing herself against the blistering cold winds of a Minnesota winter.

Those were the days before global warming … I don’t think the temperature falls that much below zero any more.

Change is good … right? Absolutely change is good … I’m a committed futurist and ardent embracer of all the new technologies. I can outrun most people in cyberspace.

After further reflection … perhaps I just like magic in our lives … and Angels symbolize my make-believe world. I didn’t want to tar and feather these visions of tomorrow … my trusted guardians into a shaky future.

I thought it would be nice, keeping one little thing for future generations

Perhaps we just get stuck in these darn memories, wanting to hoard one or two small traditions, precious vessels in our personal journey boats. Traditions are security blankets in our highly uncertain futures, lap warmers to keep us cosy, as we sail into the cold water of icy darkness.

Especially today, the unknown reminds us of The Titanic.

Traditions give us courage, as we go leaping from the splendid mother ship into our life boats.

Boy Toy wants to hold the newspaper because he likes ink on his fingers. I want to know that these Rockefeller Center Angels will not be gone next year, appearing in my mind’s eye, only as runway models. They are sooooo gorgeous, don’t you think!! The white-lights Angels, I mean … the ones blowing horns and welcoming us.

Guardian Angels, I believe we call them.

Of course, I appreciate a beautiful woman as much as the next person, and I actually did like this week’s VS Fashion Show from the Fountainbleau. Absolutely new and improved, more glamourous. Good work guys!

Banking on the Future

Wow … I just had a platinum-plated idea!

Vcitoria’s Secret Fashion Show 2009If the worst happens in the New York economy and we have no money for the original Angels next year, I do believe that the Victoria’s Secret show will go on. We could stage the Victoria’s Secret 2010 Fashion Show in Rockefeller Center … It would be spectacular!

I must put this idea in my Blackberry. Indeed … an idle mind is such a waste. So what do you think about my possibility? Let’s have an online focus group.

Whatever your Angels passions are … just please enjoy them fully during the holidays.

Embrace them, rejoice in them, adore them. Share them fully with those people you love and some new friends, too. And don’t forget to take Angels with you … wherever you are going.

Best Friends

What is that Robert Louis Stevenson poem … “I have a little Angel that goes in and out with me … And what can be the use of her is more than I can see” …

Pardon me? Alright , alright … Angels . . shadows … they’re all the same thing.

Safekeepers. The world needs safekeepers, because real Angels are in increasingly short supply these days, and I don’t know if I trust these new-fangled ones to keep me safe.

Of course, there are robots … some very cute robots, too … so if we lose Angels entirely, except for gorgeous and sexy ones, we can have Christmas robots.

Like ET. That little guy’s way too ugly for the runway, and he just emailed me that doesn’t wear lingerie.

Indeed, we might be safe with Christmas-decorated ET robots. Let’s talk about this idea …

Love, Anne