NYC is Holiday Winter Wonderland
Native New Yorker Shares Holiday Favorites
NYC at the holidays is a Winter Wonderland, with oh, so many choices of festive things to see and do.
New York City shines year-round, but especially at the holidays, when it becomes a real winter wonderland.
The official start of the season is Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade down Central Park West to midtown. Be sure to check out Jen Miner's article on NYC Hotels with Parade Views. Another treat is the night before, when the balloons are inflated in the streets around the American Museum of Natural History. Take the kids and watch Snoopy’s arm come to life, and Sponge Bob’s leg. www.macys.com.
Be sure to visit the museum, too. The dinosaurs and life-size whale suspended from a ceiling are there year-round, but the glittering origami Christmas tree is there just for the holidays, www.amnh.org. The World’s Largest Menorah shines for eight nights at the corner of 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, right in front of the FAO Schwarz toy store.
Another beautiful brightly lit tree stands in the center plaza of Lincoln Center, surrounded by the stately buildings of the Metroplitan Opera, New York Philharmonic and the New York State Theater, where Sugarplum Fairies dance nightly in the annual The Nutcracker ballet, another city tradition, www.lincolncenter.org. Ditto the high-stepping Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, www.radiocity.com.
Grab your skates, or rent them, and take a spin on the ice. The most famous and most crowded ice skating rink is in Rockefeller Center, in front of the world-famous tree. Head few blocks uptown, to Central Park, where the Kate Wollman Rink (www.wollmanrink.com) is a locals fav. This is where I learned to skate, and taught my kids. Great views of surrounding skyscrapers.
Some of the best things in my hometown are free, and I’m not just talking about the people watching.
Department stores Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s and Lord and Taylor are famous for their spectacular animated holiday windows, with a different theme each year. It could be Victorian holidays or Space Age holidays or anything the creative designers work all year to surprise us with.
At Grand Central Station, there’s a free laser light show that turns the vaulted ceiling into a magical extravaganza. www.grandcentralterminal.com.
It’s free to look and play with the video games on display, but the kids probably won’t let you leave the Nintendo World Store without buying. Ditto taking a ride on the ferris wheel inside Toys “R” Us in Times Square.
And speaking of Times Square, the best freebie of all is watching the ball drop on New Year’s Eve, surrounded by one million of your closest friends. Or, run away from them by joirning the New York Road Runners Midnight Run through Central Park, www.nyrr.org. You'll be huffing and puffing alongside some of the same people who ran the New York City Marathon, the annual street party the first weekend in November that many of us natives think is the real start of the holiday season.
This is just a tiny taste of what to see and do in NYC at the holidays.. For more ideas, just ask me. Or, check out the NYC Convention & Visitors Bureau website, www.nycvisit.com.
