New York: It’s Christmastime in the City

I'd been to NYC before, so I'd seen all the tourist highlights, like the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. However, you don't have to twist my arm to get me to visit and see a good show. I think, next to the Lion King, Wicked is the best show I've seen. You'll never watch the Wizard of Oz the same way again.

But why see a show in December? Why not wait until the spring when the flowers are blooming and it's not 25 degrees? Well, it's all about Christmas in the city. I'd always thought it would be a great time to take in the sights, and, as usual, I was right. New York City does Christmas right, from the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree to the Christmas Window Display at Macy's.

An unexpected surprise and best meal of the trip happened to be Sunday brunch at Tavern on the Green. The food was so good and I ate so much that it was the only meal I had that day. The Tavern was decorated for Christmas and looked kind of fairy tale-ish. And did I already mention that the food was good?

Two days in NYC in December had me whistling carols and really feeling Christmasy.

Quick Tips:

If you're going in December, bring your earmuffs and your scarf and gloves - you're going to need them! Though I was very impressed that although I brought my snow boots (it had snowed 10 inches the day before), I really didn't need them in the city. The sidewalks and roads were cleared and almost dry. There were some slushy areas but they were easily avoided.

Best Way To Get Around:

Public transportation is in no shortage in NYC. However, try to avoid catching a cab or meeting a car in a really crowded area (like Times Square). Head off to a cross street and get one there; you'll hail one more easily and avoid big traffic jams.

Walking is probably your best bet, though bring good shoes, as a block is a long way, even if it doesn't seem like it.

Finding a hotel room in NYC in the month of December was quite the drama. First, we were going to beat the prices and stay in Jersey City but decided we didn’t want the hassle of crossing the river every time we wanted to go back to our room – plus, we’d be wasting precious NYC time. But every hotel in the city was asking a ridiculous rate for what would really be just a place to sleep and store our stuff. The two-star hotels (with shared bathrooms – I think not) were asking $350 a night. I didn’t pay that to stay in the Bellagio in Las Vegas for pete’s sake!

My friend’s Marriott rewards member status came to the rescue. She was able to secure a room at the Courtyard Marriott on W. 40th Street for $274 a night (it was listing between $400 and $600 on the site for us lowly non-Marriott-special people.) For that, we got two full beds, a flat-panel TV, a view of the building across the alley, and free coffee and apples in the morning. Hey, I was just happy that I didn’t break the bank on a room so I could spend some of that extra money on my “clandestine” purse purchase from the lovely street vendors.

The room was simple but clean. The staff was very accommodating and also quite welcoming, happy to help us with any detail of our stay. It wasn’t the Hilton, nor did I expect it to be. It actually lived up to my expectations, and while I would prefer a boutique hotel the next time, I can’t think of any bad thing to say about the stay.

For what we had planned on our itinerary, the hotel was also in a very good location. It was a 9-block walk to Rockefeller Center, a 2-block walk to Times Square, a 7-block walk to Macy’s, and a 4-block walk to Sardi’s, and it would’ve been an 11-block walk to the theater had we not been dressed up in our theater finest with heels and taken a car. Of course, a cab or the subway makes most anything in NYC close by, but this allowed us to walk around in 20-degree weather and really soak up the Christmas atmosphere.

The Courtyard Marriott served us well, and I would not hesitate to recommend a stay there if what you want is just a nice place to lay your head. No frills, no muss, but a good hotel.

I was expecting our brunch at Tavern on the Green to be a cheesy tourist experience where they charge you $21 for scrambled eggs just to say you’ve eaten there. I will admit when I’m wrong (which isn’t often)--there’s nothing cheesy about the Tavern, and the food was so good we termed it our “clean our plates” experience. (You know, where you are sure you can’t eat one more thing, but it’s so good, you just keep going, knowing you’ll be sorry later?)

Just like the rest of NYC, the Tavern was decked out in its Christmas finest, with a beautiful Christmas tree in the main dining room and poinsettias throughout as well. Even without the reds, greens, and golds, the colored glass light fixtures and artwork, combined with the elaborate ceilings and wall murals, would be enough to hold your eyes over until you could set them upon the glory of your food.

And the food! Yup, it was pricey. The total bill for two people, with coffee ($5) one side ($8) and dessert ($12 each) came to a whopping $100. But my travel buddy ate up every bit of her horseradish-encrusted salmon ($29--for breakfast? But whatever), and I have got to say that I have never, ever, even at the IHOP, had scrambled eggs this good ($21). I don’t know what kind of crack they laced them with (I think it was a buttery sauce), but they were just right, not too salty, not too bland. The apple-smoked bacon was very flavorful, and as a staunch supporter of home fries, I enjoyed my side of these potatoes fried with onions, very tasty ($8)! I don’t know how many eggs gave their life for my pleasurable pile, but it had to have been at least three of them, and as my mother would say, I ate so many, I’m going to turn into an egg!

Who knew that you could have dessert options for brunch? If the dessert is going to be the lovely chocolate pecan tart that I sunk my fork into, I’m going to campaign for this to be included in breakfasts everywhere!

Worldly though I consider myself to be, I’d never had the encounter of two tip lines on my check, one for my waiter and one for the “captain” who sat us and took our drink orders. I tipped the waiter more, because he did all the work, but who knows if I did the “cultured” thing?

There were photographers milling around to do the touristy souvenir photos, and there was even a guest appearance from the bearded guy in the red suit!

The money was well spent, and it didn’t look like anyone in the place was suffering too badly. Make reservations in advance (or you’ll never get in) on their website (tavernonthegreen.com) up to 45 days in advance, and I’d suggest doing it on that 45th day out.

Sardi’s is known for the famous faces that hang on the wall, in caricatures, that is. Rows and rows of exaggerated visages decorate the walls of this 80-plus-year-old restaurant in the heart of the theater district, just a block off of Times Square on West 44th Street between Broadway and 8th. (First hint, catch a cab or meet a car on 8th Avenue. If they come down 44th to pick you up, they’ll take forever to reach you and forever to get out of the gridlock.)

I’d made reservations online through Sardis.com about 2 months in advance. They do take walk-ins, but on this Saturday night, with the pre-theater crowd, the wait was 2 hours without reservations when we arrived at 5pm. (Even 2 months in advance we couldn’t get our preferred time of 6pm.) However, while usually the time for the AARP crowd to be out for the senior specials, 5pm turned out to be the perfect time for us to dine. Calculate the time to be seated, the time to wait on drinks, a half-hour or so to wait on your entrée, another half-hour to eat, dessert ordering and eating time, and sitting in traffic time, we arrived at the Gershwin theater (7 blocks away) a half-hour before curtain.

In my humble opinion, this is a tourist mecca, drawn in (as we were) by the spectacle. As far as a restaurant, it’s okay. The service was excellent. I couldn’t keep up with all the waiters coming and going from our table, refilling water, bringing dinner rolls, taking pictures, etc. The food wasn’t bad, just not great. I had a filet--it was listed on the menu as coming with roasted corn and chive mashed potatoes. I thought these were two separate items, but it should be read all together as the roasted corn is IN the mashed potatoes. At first, I didn’t realize what I was eating, so it seemed kind of an interesting-in-a-good-way taste. After I figured it out, I wasn’t as convinced. I ordered the steak medium-well, and it came pretty well done. I would just think that a chef that has celebrity clients with faces on the wall would know how to cook a good steak.

I tried the crème brulee for dessert, and it had the same mediocrity as the rest of the food, as did my friend’s tiramisu cake.

We did have a “faux” celebrity sighting. Someone came up to the woman beside us and asked if she was J.P. Morgan, saying how good she looked and all. First, I was operating on the belief that J.P. Morgan was a man, and second, this woman was nowhere near that old. We had a good time laughing about it though!

Go if you want, but keep your food expectations low while you do the touristy thing to say you’ve done it.

Getting tickets to the Broadway show "Wicked" is like trying to find a needle in a haystack and then having to pay out the nose for it once you find it. I threw down $160 a piece (the show was “sold out” through Broadway.com and Gerswhin.com, where they were $75 to $100) at ticketsnow.com without any hesitations based on the reviews of a few friends and a couple of Tony Awards.

First, let me preface this review by saying I intensely dislike the Gershwin Theater. The elderly volunteer ticket checker (Betty) was the non-amusing pre-show entertainment, getting in fights with patrons over whether or not they’d showed her their tickets and how many and where their seats were, etc. (We tried to be a bit more patient than others, but it was hard.)

If there’s a good seat in the house, you’d have to walk me up to it and point it out, because I didn’t see any, and the seats we had (MMEZ, F13 and 14) were crap. The seating chart on the theater’s website is a bit misleading (the women sitting next to us also commented on how they were expecting different seats), and despite the fact that it LOOKS like it’s stadium seating, it’s not--I was looking around the gentleman’s head in front of me for the entire first act. The second act, thankfully, he changed seats with his daughter, so I could see the show without further neck injury.

But the resulting physical therapy would’ve been worth it, because this show is all it’s cracked up to be, and there is certainly no place like home. The women who played Glenda and the Wicked Witch had some of the best pipes I’ve ever heard, and Ben Vereen was endearing as the Wizard. My favorite part (if I could pick) was how the show let you in on background secrets of the Wizard of Oz (in case you didn’t know, it’s a prequel), like how the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man came into being. The songs were also singable and memorable, and as soon as I write my reviews, I’m heading off to iTunes to download the soundtrack.

And what really sucks is I can’t discuss it with anyone, because the ending was truly surprising, and I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, because that was the most fun! Let me just say this--you’ll never watch the Wizard of Oz the same way again.

Get tickets to this show however you can--beg, steal, borrow--but bring a booster seat. Screw the person behind you; they can get their own booster seat. (Did I really say that?)

The chance to be up close and personal with a Rockette? I’ll take it!

That was one of the highlights of this $17 1-hour backstage tour of one of music’s most famous buildings. The other was getting to see a small portion of the sold-out Radio City Christmas Spectacular through an upstairs viewing room. (If there’s a show or rehearsals going on during your tour, they allow you to watch for about 5 minutes or so while giving some more historical and technical info in the background.)

Ask me to recite back to you any of that historical and technical info, however, and you’ll be hard-pressed to get an answer out of me. Having never seen the Rockettes live and in person, I was fascinated and tuned everything else out. Wurlitzer Organ? Roxy Who? Art Deco design? Fascinating hydraulic stage technicalities that were guarded by the government during wartime? Look people, there are 36 perfectly proportioned women on stage dressed as toy soldiers lined up and falling onto each other like dominoes. I can’t be bothered at the moment with listening to anything, I’m enjoying the show! (As a matter of fact, we stayed a bit behind the tour to watch them finish out the act and got a bit lost and in a bit of a pickle with our guide, Joyce, who was very patient while she was chiding us.)

Despite the fact that I didn’t remember a lot of the details, Joyce was an excellent guide. She put excitement and enthusiasm into her history lesson, with zeal that couldn’t be mistaken for cheese or rehearsed. She truly loved talking with us, walking us through as if she were guiding us on a visit through her own house.

At the end of the tour we had the opportunity to ask questions of a Rockette (who was the second tallest in the line at 5’10’’) and have our photos taken with her. I didn’t expect to get so star-struck, but I had a moment.

Funny side note: Try to plan your restroom breaks at another location. Due to the show letting in and out, the line for the women’s room was (typically) about a mile long. I had 10 minutes until my tour left me and a bladder full of hot chocolate. I put on my blinders, and with the assistance of a concessions' employee (and with about 20 other women), we high-tailed it through the men’s room. Some were shocked, some were non-pulsed, and some were intrigued. Nevertheless, I was back in time for the tour and there were no reported accidents!

If you’ve got several days in NYC (or have seen most of the statues and climbed the buildings already), this tour will be a well-spent precious hour.

What’s it like to be Brian Williams, sitting behind a news desk? Is the Saturday Night Live set a laugh-a-minute? How does a green screen work? If you’ve ever lost sleep pondering these questions, or even thought about it for a few minutes, this may be the tour for you.

We purchased a ticket to tour NBC Studios in Rockefeller Center for $19 each. They don’t, however, make it easy on you. The tour departs in the candy center of the NBC Studio Gift Shop (why there’s a big candy store in the middle of all the LA Law and Friends paraphernalia, I’ll never know.) It is, I’m sure, a ploy to make you spend money, and it’s crowded to boot. You also have to pick up your tickets there a half-hour before your tour leaves or you’ll be charged a late fee of $7.50. Not cool.

My other complaint about the tour is that there are WAY too many people on the tour to really get a good experience. There were over 30 of us on this tour, and if you weren’t quick enough to get to the front to peek through a window or tall enough to see over everyone else, you missed a lot of the details.

That said, there were some perks on this day. It was a Saturday, so rehearsals for Saturday Night Live were underway. As we were going through the security check, Rachel Dretch, one of the SNL cast members, walked past us with her blue coat and coffee in hand. Once on the tour, we stopped by the studio to watch a bit of the rehearsal. The host for that week was Alec Baldwin (whom I believe is one the top five most-SNL-hosted host), and they were doing a bowling alley skit.

We stopped in a studio that was set up for tour interaction, where they took a souvenir photo of you behind a news desk, and I got to volunteer to do a weather report in front of a green screen. That was fun, and it was hard to know which direction to point (where is Virginia?) when you’re looking at your TV image and trying to read a teleprompter as well.

This tour was fun, but there were good and bad points. Whether I’d recommend it or not would depend on how long you were in NYC and what other things you’d want to see. If you haven’t done the Statue of Liberty and the main attractions, I’d say to keep this one on the back burner.

One of the big reasons for me to walk around in frigid temperatures all bundled up and looking like the Michelin Man was to see the famous department store Christmas windows. These can be seen on a walking tour (start with Macy’s on 34th and Broadway, head over to 5th Avenue for Lord & Taylor, walk up 5th Avenue to Saks, your midway point, then walk farther up 5th Avenue, hang a right onto 51st Street, and go to the corner of Lexington Avenue for Bloomingdale's.) Or, if it’s cold out, like it was when I was there, check out Macy's and Lord & Taylor, then grab a taxi to Saks, then another to Bloomingdale's, and save your toes from frostbite.

Most of the stores had windows that didn’t seem very Christmasy to me. The Saks Fifth Avenue store windows were beautiful, but they were more abstract, speaking to Harmony, Unity, Friendship, etc. I guess they could be considered the pillars of the Christmas spirit. Bloomies had a storybook character theme, with windows of Cinderella, Snow White, Aladdin, etc. Again, beautiful to look at, but what does that have to do with Christmas?

I guess it should be no surprise that the king of the Christmas windows would be Macy’s. The theme of their windows (the ones facing 34th Street, anyway) was Miracle on 34th Street. The windows told the story of a disbelieving little girl who finds her way, as does the federal court, to see that Mr. Kringle is the real Santa Claus. Of course, the windows were animated, and I thought the characters were brought to life in a very special way. These were, by far, the highlight of my window experience.

I’m so glad I got to participate in this New York Christmas tradition. The themes change each year, so they’re always fresh and new!

Why in the world would anyone don layer after layer, wear a stupid hat and big bulking earmuffs, and choke themselves with a ridiculous scarf to wear themselves out walking around New York City?

Christmas.

New York does Christmas right, and it does Christmas big. You can’t turn around without Christmas knocking you in the head. And it’s wonderful! If you ever feel like you can’t get into the Christmas spirit, come to New York and let the city help you out. Even the hotel prices and snow aren’t enough to deter!

The most famous Christmas NYC landmark is probably the Rockefeller Christmas Tree. While I did expect it to be bigger somehow (which is crazy, as it’s a 74-foot Norway Spruce), the spectacle of it didn’t disappoint (though be prepared to battle the crowds).

While you’re in Rockefeller Center, head up to 50th Street and 5th Avenue and watch the snowflake show on Saks Fifth Ave. That’s right, ON the building. Every few minutes after dark, the snowflakes perform a dance to a classic Christmas song. (Though they glow steadily in between shows.) Afterwards, look down Fifth Avenue and you can catch a glimpse of the Empire State Building, all decked out in red and green for the holidays.

Also while at Saks, check out the windows. One of my favorite things was trekking to all the department stores to see their Christmas windows (see my Christmas windows journal). My favorite set of windows was at Macy’s, as they told the Miracle on 34th Street story.

Trump does everything big, and Christmas is no exception. Trump Tower dresses up in its Christmas finery for the season, and the tourists eat it up.

Really, you could almost stand on any corner and look around to see decorations, sculptures, displays, wreaths, etc.

Even though Jack Frost will be nipping at your nose, it’ll warm your heart.