Like countless working moms around the world, Katie Hamrah, Traci Reszetylo, and Tara Dunleavy Tubridy, are jugglers, especially around the holidays. Tara has three daughters — Ava, 6, and 4-year-old twins Devin and Brynn — and she prides herself on using her free time wisely, knocking out some holiday shopping and Christmas card writing on the train to and from work. Katie, mom to 2-year-old Karson, happily plans her Elf on the Shelf’s next escapade in a rare moment of downtime on the job. Traci, mom to 5-year-old Sophia and step-mom to 12-year Briana, has famously managed to get some gift wrapping done in-between tasks at work. The difference between these three and most of us, however, is that when they’re not making the holidays merry and bright for their own families, they’re also making Christmas magic for millions of people from mid-November through early January as Rockettes, the high-kicking dancers who perform in Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular as well as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting, any other events that require an extra dash of holiday cheer.
“It is a hard job a lot of time, but we make it work,” Traci tells me by Zoom. “I think as moms, no matter what type of life you have — a job like this, a banker’s job, if you’re home with your kid — it's busy. I just feel blessed that I can do this as well.”
When I talk to Traci and Katie, the pair are backstage, each sporting an identical bun and bright red lipstick. (“Rockette red,” Traci tells me. “That's one of our staples here.”) Finding a moment to do anything, from wrapping a present backstage to talking to reports, is a challenge: Rockettes work six days a week and can dance up to four shows a day. When they aren’t on stage, there are still rehearsals, special events (including the Thanksgiving Day parade), “experiences” (yes, you can take a dance class with the Rockettes!), and more. And that’s before they get home.
“Once I walk in the door after shows, it’s dinner, homework, bath, and bedtime,” says Tara, who answered by questions by email. “All three of my girls are now in school, so I prep their lunches the night before and finish them in the morning before I leave ... Sometimes it’ s 9 p.m. before I get a chance to relax.”
Tara’s husband works from home, so he’s the primary boots on the ground while she’s at work. It’s also not uncommon for the Christmas Spectacular’s casts (there are two who do the show at Radio City Music Hall) to rely on their extended networks during this busy time of year to help manage their home life.
“[My daughters] told their classes that they were coming to see ‘mommy’s show.’ They absolutely love it.”
“My mom is my glue during the season,” Katie says. “She holds my life together.”
“It’s all the same mom stress,” Traci agrees. “But whenever we do go home, we just grasp all the things that you can get in, in that amount of time. On my day off, the washer’s working overtime that day. But we do have to have support systems at home — [Katie’s] mom, my parents, my husband’s parents. And then we have each other whenever we come to work.”
To hear these dancers talk, being a Rockette — a job you have to audition for every year — is like the world’s jazziest, most wholesome sorority. To a woman, each told me that in the years they’ve been doing the show they’ve made some of their closest and best friends.
“Somebody said this to us whenever we first started as Rockettes, that as this job continues, you meet people who are going to be at your weddings, who are going to be maybe showers and everything,” says Katie. “It is really, really true. [Traci and I] were at each other’s weddings, baby showers, everything. So it just becomes like your family, like your second family here.” She gestures to Traci. “This one has helped me a lot.”
“I almost cry whenever the curtain goes up because I'm like, ‘My daughters are watching.’”
“It goes both ways,” Traci replies.
This rapport, and indeed the sense of sisterhood that seems to permeate the casts, hasn’t been built over one holiday season. Katie and Tara are both in their 18th season. Traci has been with the show 22, as long as any current cast member. “She’s an icon, this one,” Katie says. Traci notes that this year marks half her life as being involved with the Rockettes.
And of course it’s something that, as moms, they love to share with their little ones. All of their children have seen the show at least once. (In Traci and Katie’s cases, their children have also — in a sense — been in the show. Both women performed while pregnant and then got right back on stage the following season, within months of giving birth.) But every time a Rockette kiddo can come see a performance it’s a special moment for their families.
“We usually try to bring [our daughters] a few times each year,” Tara says. “They had a count down: and even told their classes that they were coming to see ‘mommy’s show.’ They absolutely love it.”
“Just to see it through their eyes and watch their amazement and the magic come through them is absolutely incredible,” Traci tells me, wistfully excited. “Obviously, whenever that curtain goes up at any given point during the season, it is really something special to us. But to have your child in the audience, it really brings a different kind of... I almost cry whenever the curtain goes up because I'm like, ‘My daughters are watching.’”
And come January (this year the last show is on January 4), the Rockettes all go their separate ways and return to their non-Christmas season lives. Katie is a stay-at-home mom; Traci is a dance teacher; Tara is a real estate agent. Their lives still busy — being a mom always is — but not “holiday season as a mom and Rockette busy.” But then, six weeks before the show opens, many of them will come back together to begin their grueling-but-rewarding annual routine of getting ready for the holidays in-between continuing a tradition 90 years old (and going strong).
“Being a mom, we do get to have those overwhelming days,” Traci says. “I just feel like it’s really just a special thing to have in my life to be a Rockette as well, so I’m just so honored that I am blessed that I can do both.”
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