HOLIDAY ICE RINK AT PERSHING SQUARE 2024

I had been to a few previous opening days of the Holiday Ice Rink at downtown LA’s Pershing Square, and enjoyed them all. But this was my first time attending the event in the evening. (The event was changed to this later time last year, but I could not go then.) It was interesting in a different way because this time, since it got dark out while we were there, we also got to be privy to the Pershing Square Christmas tree lighting!

The event was full of great camaraderie among guests who love skating and holiday fun in general. Roz and I bumped into several people we know and haven’t seen in a while, including Willy Bietek, who produces the rink every year.

As we entered the rink area, we were offered chocolate chip and sugar cookies, (which my friend Roz declared “are basically a meal!”,) along with the hottest hot chocolate and hot apple cider ever! It was all perfect for the late November evening. (It was also very soothing for my klutzy self who had a bad fall on the way up to the rink from the parking lot—I fell so hard that my thumb ring flew off!)

Then the festivities began. There were a few brief greetings from various officials and people associated with bringing this fun activity to us. And then we were treated to several incredible performances. The first was the National Anthem sung beautifully by Tiffany Ho. She hit one astonishing note that even made people snap their heads up from their phones!!! That’s hard to achieve in this age of tech addictions!

Then came the first group of ice skaters, which was five young ladies in very sparkly skirts, from LA Ice Theater. They were followed by beautiful Yaroslav Paniot, who is my new favorite male skater. He’s actually the first *European skater to have completed a quad flip in international competition! *(He skated for Ukraine at the time, but he now lives in, and competes for, America.)

The final performance of the evening made me uber-jealous because it was comprised of the two main things in life that I wish I could do, but definitely cannot—*skate and sing! Natalia Vivino, (who has the super-interesting career of traveling between productions of Wicked to play Elphaba whenever needed,) sang a gorgeous version of one of the songs from that musical, (those Wicked songs all sound alike to me, so I don’t remember which one it was,) backed by yet another quintet of fabulous female skaters from L.A. Ice Theater. *(My favorite story about my non-skating situation is at the end of this article.)

When the pros got off the ice, that’s when the real fun began for all the kids in attendance, (and some of the grown-ups, as well,) because…they all got to skate themselves! They must have loved being the first guests on that gorgeous sparkling virgin ice!

Since as I mentioned, I can’t skate, (and also because we bon vivettes had to move on to our next event that night,) we couldn’t stay to join the happy skaters.

But all of us will have plenty of opportunities to join in the fun because the Holiday Rink will be open until two days before the most important holiday of any year—my January 14th birthday! Be sure to check-out their website below for all the info, including the special nights they have planned.

Happy skating, everybody!

Holiday Ice Rink open through January 12, 2025
Pershing Square 532 South Olive Street
213-624-4289 www.holidayicerinkdowntownla.com

*Okay, here’s that story about my non-skating: Because my parents were teachers, and therefore in academia instead of athletics, my whole young life was based around being the smartest in the class, or close to it. (One of my now-grown-up friends from way back then, told her daughter, “Karen was a brain! A fat, ugly little brain!” Charming, but I’m at least proud of the “brain” part!) I never even learned to ride a bike. But when I was six, out of the whole school that went up to 14-year-olds, the Principal sent a twelve-year-old foreign student to me to teach her English! He thought I was the correct one for the assignment, which I now think was really strange, especially considering that my much smarter older sister was still in the school. But I thought that was normal back then.

So I never went ice-skating until the one time my friends took me when I was thirteen. And then I never went again until I had lived in LA for a while, and was already twenty. And then not again until just a couple of times in my thirties. But I absolutely adored everything about watching ice-skating my whole life. Later on, I became friendly with a couple of the famous skaters and the people who ran the pro shows about a decade and a half ago. My mother knew I was friends with them, and that I went to all their shows, and how much I loved it all. Plus I had always been a dancer since I was a little girl. So one day she said, “Karen, I’m so surprised that you didn’t become a figure skater!” I was a bit shocked by that statement. So I asked her, “Ma, what would I need to figure skate, besides being a dancer and having love of watching and knowing the skaters?” She was dumbfounded, so I answered for her, “Parents who let me go ice-skating when I was a little!!!” We had a good laugh over it.

But now, I can pretend to be a skater with my next visit to the Pershing Square Holiday Ice Rink! (As long as I don’t take a fall until I’m on the ice, not on my way to it!)