#OccupyWallStreet is going to ruin my Christmas

I know it's a bit early to be thinking about Christmas. But it's been on my mind lately as downtown NYC starts to sparkle with Christmas lights.

And you better believe NYC does it up right. Carefully wrapped branches result in beautiful twinkling trees. None of that throw-it-in-the-branches-and-call-it-a-day stuff.

But one of my very favorite places at Christmastime is currently "Occupied."

Zuccotti Park, where the Occupy Wall Street movement is camped out, is a block-sized, understated park you really wouldn't think twice about walking through. In the daytime, it's full of people sitting on its stone benches, eating lunch from the nearby food carts. Tourists take pictures from here of the WTC site.

But the real magic of this park is at night. We often walk through Zuccotti Park on our way home from work. (Well, we did, before the Occupiers arrived.) This particular park has light bars built into the ground every few steps, making it a really beautiful, peaceful, ambient place to be at night. I love it. I've even told my husband that if things had been different, I would love to have been proposed to in that park.

And the beauty of the lights is only magnified at Christmas, when each bare tree is painstakingly wrapped with strands of white Christmas lights. And the planters in the park are taken over by huge, perfect Christmas trees.

A little natural snow never hurts

So I'm a bit sad that it's looking like I won't be enjoying my favorite Christmas spot this year. I wish I had a picture of it at night to show you. But if I took it now, it'd be full of plastic tarps and unshowered protesters.

{This is not meant to be a political statement. Let's keep it that way.}