PHOTO COLLECTION: The iconic and unconventional sides of Christmas in New York

NEW YORK — The challenge of photographing Christmastime in New York is that there is so much of it.

The big tree in Rockefeller Center. Ice skating in Central Park. The Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. All those lavish, holiday-themed department store window displays.

This is the iconic New York tourists come to see. Visitors know it well from movies and television.

But millions of New Yorkers experience these remarkable sights in a different way. For them, this is home. Those department stores might be where they shop for presents. That famous rink might be where they take their kid to skate after school.

Over several weeks, Associated Press photographer Julia Nikhinson found ways to document both the familiar and unfamiliar sides of the holiday season in the city.

She found storybook images, like neighborhood carolers and an urban garden ablaze with light, while also capturing the city's weirder side, including a holiday-themed burlesque show, a guy who roams the city impersonating a Christmas tree and an invasion of hard-drinking Santas.

And she photographed some of the ways a New York Christmas is different, like carrying a tree home under your arm after work because you don't own a car.