34th Street works for me both as a kind of ritual (because it does occur around Christmas), but also as a spectacle, and I like a good spectacle any time of year. We visit 34th Street every few years, and we made it this year – my family and I all came out for the lights and crowds this past December. Doing this as a family group really solidified the experience as ritual for me. But I also took my video camera and took a lot of great moving camera shots of the lights (kind of ignoring my family in the process) that I plan to use in future videos. . . is this kind of indulgence allowed when observing a ritual?

It probably depends on the dogma associated with the ritual and in this case I would assume that it not only be allowed but expected.

Yes, exactly right – in this case, the associated dogma was completely open-ended and embracing of all celebratory and artistically-inclined whims.

It’s an interesting thought–
How much is documenting the ritual now part of the ritual in our culture?